Page 39 of The Devilish Pleasures of a Duke

“Then why—” She started to laugh. “If it’s not money, then it has to be—There’s only two things a man goes after.”

“How old are you?” he demanded.

“Seventeen. I think.”

“Well, you sound as if you were brought up in a brothel.”

“How’d you know?” she asked, genuinely surprised.

“Go away,” he said wearily.

“How much?”

“How much what?” he asked in mild vexation.

She leaned her bony shoulder up against the door. “How much will you pay me not to peach?”

“What?” he said, his voice soft with disbelief.

“How much will you pay me not to tell Mrs. Killjoy you’re puttin’ her on?”

He stood suddenly, the sword gripped loosely in his left hand. He’d never hurt a female in his life. Then again, he’d never been blackmailed by one, either. “Do you know how I spent the last ten years of my life?”

“Growin’ marigolds?”

He walked up to her until she stood pressed flat against the door. “Death. Dismemberment. I’ve been accused, rightly or wrongly, of a beheading or two.”

“I see.” She swallowed, nodding in understanding. “So that’s why she likes you.”

Adrian knew he shouldn’t ask. A guttersnipe in any land was hardly the most reliable source of information. But, on the other hand, the girl didn’t seem stupid. “How do you know she likes me?”

“’Cause you’re in a bad way. She prides herself on fixin’ up people, making them all proper and pretty. Ye’re pretty, no doubt. But you ain’t proper. There’s the devil in your eyes.”

He smiled coldly. “In that case, you’d better not cross me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” She thrust her hand at him. “The name’s Harriet and I’m gonna be a lady. Shake?”

“No. Just fetch me some clean towels. You’ve stepped all over the ones you brought, and I’m a bit particular about my personal habits.”

She bobbed a shaky curtsy. “I’ll have ’em bloody well embroidered in gold thread and ironed, if you like.”

He grinned. It never hurt to have an ally. “Then we understand each other?”

She had the nerve to grin back at him. “We cheats and swindlers got to stick together, I always say.”

An hour later Adrian had reached the end of his tolerance for inactivity and escaped his room to wander downstairs and into the garden.

He hoped he would catch Emma alone. Her well-meaning scolds cheered him up. He liked the thought of walking with her in the garden, teasing her into a bit of temper. She’d probably admonish him for being out of bed. Perhaps she would take his hand and offer to sit with him for a few minutes.

He walked past a shed and suddenly found himself surrounded by a gaggle of sketching debutantes. He froze. By the expressions on their young faces he knew he’d done something very wrong by interrupting their class. Either that or they’d been warned he was a man to avoid.

Emma would strangle him if he embarrassed her in front of her students. Still, it was too late to make an escape unseen. One of the girls had spotted him over her sketchbook and gave a cheery shout of recognition.

“Crikey! Look who’s risen from the dead. It’s the duke ’isself.”

That voice. He cringed. That impudent young face. The guttersnipe again. He nodded pleasantly as Emma looked up from the bench to stare at him in…well, her face gave nothing away. She wasn’t exactly strewing rose petals of welcome at his feet. She merely sat in a pose of guarded attention as if she were a figure in a painting. Perhaps she was afraid he would give her away.

“Excuse me,” he said, bowing politely and coming to a halt. “I didn’t mean to cause a disruption.”