The Duke’s Desire Read Online Free Page A

be here, and she was, after all, in mourning.
    Nor did she wish to attract any attention to herself, in any way, from anyone.
    “And the Duchess of—”
    The thin, middle-aged woman fell silent when she saw Verity, then ran a measuring and slightly scornful gaze over her.
    Verity instinctively clenched her teeth, wondering if the woman was condemning her for her lack of fashionable style or recalling past scandals. “Pray do not let me interrupt you,” she said as graciously as she could.
    The general’s wife glanced toward the duke. “It is not important.”
    “I assume you were speaking of the Duke of Deighton,” Verity proposed.
    She moved conspiratorially closer to Lady Smurston, a large woman wearing an ill-fitting gown of purple that strained against her ample bosom. The gathers at the high bodice did nothing to disguise her equally ample stomach.
    “I confess he quite frightens me,” Verity continued. “He looks so fierce, if he speaks to me, I should probably swoon.”
    “I daresay you will be quite safe,” Lady Smurston replied. “He’s looking at Lady Mary now, and she seems pleased to be the object of his scrutiny. I imagine she’s already planning her wedding clothes.”
    “Oh, surely she knows better!” the gray-haired,black-eyed Lady Percy cried. “Those bad Bromney boys won’t settle down till they’re fifty, if then!”
    “I didn’t know the duke had any brothers,” one of the other ladies remarked.
    “Oh, indeed, he has,” Lady Percy answered eagerly. “The late duke had two wives, you see. Deighton is from his first—to the Earl of Hedgeford’s daughter. After she died, the duke married Lady Crathorn, a great beauty—and proud of it, too. Marrying the duke made her quite insufferable, really. The names she chose for her children! I’m sure she was determined to remind people of her family’s history. Each one is the title of a family into which the Crathorn women have married, at one time or another.”
    Another younger woman, so pale Verity thought she could see the veins beneath her pallid skin, wandered over to them.
    “What are their names?” she asked curiously.
    “Buckingham, who is in the navy and somewhere at sea, Warwick, who is an adjutant to Wellington, and the youngest one is Huntington, a most outrageous rascal. He’s at Harrow with my boy. Hunt Bromney set the headmaster’s coat on fire one day, and nearly burned down the entire school. As for the other things he’s got up to, they are too numerous to mention.”
    “Like his brother’s lovers,” Mrs. Ponsonby said slyly.
    “Why was the boy not expelled?” Miss Pale exclaimed.
    “The duke has too much wealth and too many influential friends,” Lady Percy replied.
    “If I were a vicious person,” Mrs. Ponsonby said with a vicious little smile, “I would caution Lady Bodenham to set a guard outside Lady Mary’s door.”
    “I don’t think a single guard would stop the duke, if he were determined to enter,” Lady Smurston noted.
    Mrs. Ponsonby’s nasty smile grew as she looked at Verity. “Forgive us if we shock you, but perhaps we don’t….” She let her sneering words trail off as she shrugged her grub-white shoulders.
    “I have heard of the duke and his reputation, as well as certain other bits of gossip that some people apparently feel it necessary for all the world to know,” Verity replied with more than a hint of defensive spirit. “However, I should point out that if you believe the duke’s attentions to Lady Mary are not honorable, you should be warning her, not us.”
    Before Mrs. Ponsonby could close her gaping mouth, Lady Smurston colored. “Shh! He’s coming this way,” she whispered.
    “Who?” Verity inquired with forced serenityeven as she felt the duke approach, as if he were encompassed by an aura.
    Swallowing hard, Verity didn’t move until Eloise appeared at her elbow, the duke in tow.
    “I believe you’ve already been introduced to everyone here, Your Grace,”