An American Duchess Read Online Free

her.
    His sister picked up his lighter. “Attempting to smoke. Miss Gifford does it. She claims that smoking calms nerves. She also claims it keeps a woman thi—”
    He relieved Julia of her unlit cigarette, plucking it from her lips. “Smoking is a man’s habit. A lit gasper has no place near a delicate lady’s mouth.”
    “Really, Nigel?” Julia crossed her arms in front of her chest. “So? What do you think of her?”
    Julia was never so direct or blunt. Nor had she ever considered raiding his cigarette case before. Good God, were American ways contagious?
    At least their manner of dress was not. His sister wore a demure gown of dark blue silk and it reached the middle of her calves. Her hair was long and rolled into a chignon. She was very like their mother, though her hair was jet-black, not gold, but she was just as beautiful with her oval face, her curling dark lashes and her wide pale pink mouth that she never touched with paint.
    “Since you have seen her, I don’t think I need to say more.”
    “Nigel, you can be hopelessly stuffy.” Julia sighed and walked to the windows of his dressing room, pulling back the faded velvet curtains.
    He followed. The rain had blown in hard. It ran down the windowpanes, turning the world beyond into a blurry palette of subdued color. Sheets of it sliced through the dark skies and slammed into the stone terrace and the green lawns.
    “I showed her and her mother to their rooms,” Julia said, arching a brow, “since you appeared to have abandoned them.”
    “I instructed Mrs. Hall to take her and her mother to their apartments. It is customary for the housekeeper to do so.” He frowned. “Sebastian is nowhere to be found, of course. I have no idea what to say to either of them. The mother was chattering on about the paintings and fixtures as they went upstairs—it sounded as if she were cataloging the contents of the house to auction them off. Miss Gifford finds me both prejudiced and irritating. However, she is determined to say things that both irritate me and prove my prejudice well-founded. The woman is Sebastian’s fiancée. He should be here to keep her entertained.”
    He felt Julia’s stare and he turned to her.
    His sister regarded him with an amused expression. “I thought you’d only spent a short time in her company, Nigel. It sounds as if you had a lot to discuss.”
    “American women are not backward in coming forward.” He raked his hand through his hair. He couldn’t tell Julia the whole truth about this damnable, scandalous business. “She told me she proposed to him.”
    “Nigel, women in America—”
    “Are not ladylike.”
    Julia laughed. And that was a rare treat these days. She was usually quiet, somber, troubled. He wished she would fall in love again. Yet he could not do his duty as head of the family and ensure she was presented to eligible men. Her dowry was quickly evaporating, along with the rest of the money.
    “I thought she looked very ladylike,” Julia argued. “Even you can’t deny that she is very lovely.”
    “Her skirts are too short. She paints her face. Her hair is cut like a boy’s.”
    “It is the fashion now, brother dear. It is called the Eton crop.”
    “That’s because schoolboys have their hair cut that way. It’s hardly feminine.”
    “I do love you, Nigel,” Julia said. “Miss Gifford has what the Americans call ‘it.’ You know—sex appeal.”
    He did know what was meant by “it.” But the word sex on the lips of his sister brought a strangled cough from his chest. Nigel sputtered, unable to catch his breath. He had to stalk to the chest of drawers, where he’d set a glass of brandy, and down a mouthful before he could stop choking. Suddenly, he saw what Miss Gifford was already bringing into his household.
    The bloody modern world.
    He didn’t want it here.
    He’d come back from war to find that, while he spent four years in mucky trenches, the world had changed—it was as if he’d