The Art 0f Pleasuring A Duke (Steamy Historical Regency Romance)

by Scarlett Osborne

  Of course, the worst possibility of all was that she would be exactly as lovely as he imagined, charming, interesting, and kind, but would want nothing to do with him. His mother never tired of telling him how lucky any young lady would be to marry him. He was a Duke, after all, with considerable financial and political power.

  Nathaniel knew all of this, but he did not know whether a ballerina was likely to care about his political standing or financial security.

  Don’t be a fool. Common people care about wealth at least as much as aristocrats, possibly more.

  He paced about the library with a hurried step, crossing the room in several long strides before turning around to cross it once more.

  Having come to the conclusion that he could be reasonably certain that Miss Conolly would find his money appealing, he now worried about this as well. Might she find his money so appealing that she would feign romantic interest in him, just to gain wealth and title?

  Nathaniel considered this, not wanting to believe it possible.

  Miss Conolly would never do such a thing.

  But then Nathaniel reminded himself that he had never met Miss Conolly, and had no idea of what she might or might not do. Because of this, he was able to convince himself that this point was not worth considering at the moment.

  Nathaniel had decided for the third time this morning that he would wait and see whether Miss Conolly seemed at all interested in him before worrying about her motivations. As he came to this conclusion, and was about to begin the cycle of anxious thoughts all over again, his mother entered the library.

  “Good day, Nathaniel,” she said, her eyes fixed on him. He had stopped pacing when she entered the room, and as a result was standing in the middle of the floor, looking, as he imagined it, rather silly.

  “Good day, Mother,” he said, keeping his tone casual as he strode over to a comfortable arm chair near the fire and sat down. He gestured to the chair opposite him, to indicate that his mother should join him, which she did.

  “I am quite pleased that you have agreed to escort me to the party this evening after the ballet.” She said, “Are you sure that you do not have other things that you would prefer to do tonight?”

  “Not at all, Mother.” Nathaniel said, with a smile. “I am quite looking forward to it.”

  “Really?” his mother asked. Nathaniel could not quite tell whether her tone denoted mere surprise or suspicion. He knew that his mother was an inconveniently observant sort of person, and he would need to be careful about how much enthusiasm he let show.

  “I enjoy spending time with you, and I had no other plans this evening,” he said, simply.

  “You really are too kind, my dear. And I am so pleased that you seem to have taken to the ballet so well. It is lovely to have someone to enjoy it with now that your father is no longer here to take me,” she sighed at the end of her sentence and looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap.

  Nathaniel did not know what he ought to say to this, so he simply nodded and kept silent. After a moment, his mother spoke once more.

  “I do believe that Lady Elaine Stanton will be present tonight. She is the daughter of the Duke of Westhaven. A charming young lady, quite pretty, she came out last season and everyone said what a delightful person she was.”

  Nathaniel felt his hands tensing into fists at his sides, but tried not to show his feelings in any other way. If his Mother was bringing the young lady up, there could be no doubt that she hoped that Nathaniel might marry her.

  He had met Lady Elaine Stanton at a few balls last season, and found her to be pretty, but exceptionally dull to talk to. He supposed that many gentlemen in his position would not find this to be a problem, and he was quite sure that his mother would say that it was not, but for Nathaniel, to be married to such a person would be torturous.

  His mother was looking at him, expecting a response. Nathaniel could not honestly say that he was excited to see Lady Elaine again, but of course if she were present, he would mostly likely need to dance with her at least once for the sake of politeness.

  “I have met Lady Elaine before,” he said, searching his mind for something to say about her. “As I recall, she is a competent dancer.”

  “She is that,” his mother agreed with a sigh, “though perhaps when you renew your acquaintance with her this evening, you can manage a bit more enthusiasm in your complements?”

  Nathaniel grimaced at her words, but simply said, “Of course, I shall be a perfect gentleman to Lady Elaine. And, of course, to everyone I encounter this evening.”

  “Yes, of course you will, my dear,” his mother said, smiling at him once again. “You always are in the end. Sometimes you do make me worry, though.”

  “I am sorry, Mother,” he said, truly meaning it, though he knew that he could never stop her from worrying about him. His very nature was so different to hers, he was never able to meet her expectations for long.

  “No need to apologize. I must do my best not to let my worries overtake me, for both of our sakes.”

  Nathaniel smiled at this and shook his head slightly. He could not change his nature to suit his mother’s desires, but no more could she change her own nature. Nathaniel knew perfectly well that she would never stop worrying about him, and he had, by now, accepted this simple fact of life.

  “All right, Mother, I wish you the best of luck in that endeavor, but I must advise you that I believe it to be an impossible goal.”

  The Dowager Duchess laughed out loud at this, and Nathaniel joined her. There had been so little laughter between them through the years, but those moments, spontaneous and unexpected, just like this one, were some of Nathaniel’s fondest memories. Now he managed to put aside thoughts of Miss Conolly, and Lady Elaine, and everything else that had caused him anxiety in the past many days, and simply enjoy the moment.

  After Nathaniel and his mother had both stopped laughing and calmed down, she informed him that she was off to call upon some friends but would be back in time for the evening meal before leaving for the ballet. Nathaniel bid her good day and resumed his pacing of the library.

  Knowing that he could not possibly continue in this fashion for the rest of the day, Nathaniel approached the nearest bookshelf. Reaching out, he pulled the first book upon which his hand fell. Not knowing yet what it was, he brought the large volume over to a chair and began to read.

  He had hoped that the book would be interesting enough to distract him from his nervous thoughts. Unfortunately, he had chosen an extremely dry tome on the principles of economics, and soon found that his mind was wandering as his eyes slid over the words on the page.

  After a quarter of an hour of this, Nathaniel decided that reading would do him no good. Closing the book, he stood up from his chair, stretching his long legs.

  In spite of his nerves, and in spite of the fact that the book in his hand was, perhaps, the most boring book ever written, Nathaniel placed it carefully on the shelf, in exactly the same spot from which he had retrieved it. His father had always been particular about his books, and Nathaniel had inherited this trait from him.

  Having given up on reading, Nathaniel called for a servant and asked for his hat and coat. He had nowhere to go, in particular, but he thought that a walk might serve as a pleasant distraction.

  Once he had put on his coat and hat, Nathaniel walked out of the entryway and into the busy London street. He enjoyed walking through town and observing the different people in various neighborhoods. His country estate was beautiful and serene, but London was bursting with energy, and Nathaniel felt that energy coursing through his own veins every time he came to stay.

  Nathaniel set off in the direction of his favorite book shop, walking at a leisurely pace. Most of the people that he saw going about their business appeared to be servants from wealthy households much like his own. There were men preparing carriages, and women carrying their shopping in large baskets.

  He could not help but wonder what these people di
d when Parliament was not in session and the members of the ton all moved back to their country estates. No doubt some of them would return to the country with their employers, but many of them would remain in town. Nathaniel found that he was fascinated by trying to imagine their day-to-day lives.

  This train of thought soon turned to Miss Conolly. No doubt her life as a ballerina was quite different to that of a maid or a cook, but he assumed that she lived in London all year long.

  What might her days be like when the ballet was not performing?

  * * *

  Anna was preparing for the final performance of this ballet, to be followed by the party. As usual, she had stretched at the boarding house, alone in her room before eating a simple meal. Now she was at the theater, putting the finishing touches on her makeup before she had to be on stage.

  Yesterday had been a good day. Upon arriving at the theater, she had given Bridget her gown, and they were both delighted to find that it fit her perfectly and would not need any alterations. Camilla had nodded at her when she greeted her, and had spared her any cutting remarks. Most importantly, the performance had been one of the company’s best.

  A small voice in Anna’s head nagged at her, insisting that it would be unreasonable to expect two such stellar performances in a row.

  Surely something is bound to go wrong tonight.

  Anna placed her hands on her dressing table, pressing them down into the solid wood for support. Slowly, she breathed in through her nose, and out through her mouth.

  She remembered how much this exercise had helped Maisie just yesterday. And she remembered performing it with her own mother as a child. Slowly, Anna felt herself begin to relax. The nagging voice became smaller, and more distant, until she could barely hear it at all. By the time she stood up to walk on stage, Anna was able to ignore the voice entirely.

  “Break a leg,” Bridget whispered to Anna, squeezing her hand as they walked to the stage.

  “You too,” Anna replied, with a smile, squeezing her friend’s hand in return.

  A moment later, Anna heard the orchestra begin to play, and hearing her cue, she stood on pointe, raising her arms above her head, and floated onto the stage. Once she began to dance, all other thoughts disappeared from her mind. She had trained for years to develop her natural talents, and she knew that her body was prepared to execute the choreography perfectly.

  A wonderful lightness overtook Anna when she was on stage—it had always been this way for as long as she could remember. This was why she loved to dance, this was what she was meant to do. She felt her body moving in time with the music, in harmony with the rest of the corps de ballet, and she felt more sure of herself than in any other time or place.

  Chapter 12

  Nathaniel sat in his mother’s private box at the theater. This was his third time seeing this particular ballet, but he was far from bored. He found that he was impressed by all of the dancers each time he came to the ballet, but as always, he could not take his eyes off of the prima ballerina. Or, as he now knew her, Miss Conolly.

  He felt a tightening in the pit of his stomach the moment that she fluttered onto the stage on the tips of her toes. Nathaniel was trying very hard not to let his reactions show. His mother had always been highly observant, and he did not wish to explain to her just now that he thought he might be in love with a ballerina whom he had never met.

  This was especially true, since he knew that he would be meeting her in just a few hours. Nathaniel had been worried that he might not enjoy the ballet because he would be too anxious to get to the party. However, he need not have worried on that score.

  Of course, he was eager to get to the party where he would be able to meet the woman who had been haunting his dreams of late, but the sight of her on stage captivated him so completely that he lost all sense of time. He could not think of the party he had been anticipating for days when he was looking at her long legs and graceful arms.

  When the curtain fell at the interval, Nathaniel leaned back in his chair, only then realizing that he had been leaning forward. He made a conscious effort to make his breathing steady and even, so as not to give his mother an excuse to ask if he was quite all right.

  “Well, tonight’s performance seems to be going quite well, don’t you think?” the Dowager Duchess asked.

  “Yes,” Nathaniel said, “quite well.”

  “What do you think of the prima ballerina?” Nathaniel’s mother asked him. Her tone and manner were casual, and there was no reason to believe that her question was anything more than small talk. Still, Nathaniel could not help feeling nervous at this.

  “Which one is that?” he asked, not wanting to admit that he had gained any specific knowledge of the ballet in the past two weeks.

  “The prima ballerina,” his mother said, sounding at once amused and exasperated. “The lead ballerina. The one with the red hair?”

  “Oh, her. Yes, I know who you mean,” Nathaniel said. “She is quite talented, I think, though I admit that I know very little about the ballet. Still, how she manages to stand on the tips of her toes for so long is a mystery to me. She must be quite strong.”

  The Dowager Duchess chuckled at this and rolled her eyes at her son. “They have special shoes that allow them to stand on their toes, though I do not doubt that it is quite difficult. The prima ballerina was just promoted this season, she was in the corps de ballet last season. I think that she is more talented than her predecessor.”

  “I see,” Nathaniel said, feigning indifference, “well, having never seen her predecessor, I cannot comment on the relative merits of both ballerinas.”

  “No, I suppose you cannot,” his mother replied, “but I am glad that you seem to be enjoying the performance all the same.”

  “I am. Thank you for asking me to escort you to that first performance, Mother. It has been a very pleasant surprise to find that I enjoy the ballet as much as I do.”

  Nathaniel had only a moment to reflect on the fact that Miss Conolly had only been in the role of prima ballerina for a year before the lights dimmed once again. He had just long enough to consider what an impressive feat it must have been for her to achieve such success in such a short space of time.

  As he considered this, the curtain lifted and he saw her once again. And just as he had been at the beginning of the performance, and at each previous performance, he was taken aback by her beauty and grace. He was once again struck by the thought that her beauty seemed other-worldly, and his conclusion that she might appear quite different in person, without stage make-up or dramatic lighting.

  These thoughts did not trouble him for long, though. Miss Conolly’s movements across the stage soon had him mesmerized to the point that he could think of nothing at all. Each step that she took, every extension of her arm, or spin of her body, communicated an emotion more clearly than a soliloquy of a thousand words.

  Nathaniel found himself so swept up in the performance that he felt the joys and sorrows of Miss Conolly’s character as though they were his own. When she fell to the floor at the end of the performance, murdered by a jealous rival, he felt a stab of anguish.

  Nathaniel knew perfectly well that Miss Conolly was acting, and that she would soon be alive and well, taking her bow, but that knowledge did little to stop the tightening in his chest at the site of her lying prone and vulnerable, while her rival spun around her.

  Nevertheless, when he saw her standing up once again, very much alive, and smiling to the audience as she took her final bow, he breathed an audible sigh of relief. He realized, too late, that his mother might have heard this, but when he glanced in her direction, her eyes were fixed on the stage, and she was clapping politely along with the rest of the audience.

  * * *

  Anna left the stage after the final curtain call, feeling that tonight’s performance had been quite a success. In spite of her worries, she had two excellent performances in a row. You see, there was nothing to worry about at all, she imagined telling he
r reflection in the looking glass. The nagging voice of worry answered back, there is still the party, though—who knows what might happen at the party?

  Anna felt her heart beginning to race, and her mind begin to churn with ideas of what might go wrong tonight. She closed her eyes for a moment as she breathed in deeply, and reminded herself that she knew exactly what to expect from the evening ahead of her.

  Mr. Bamber would escort her in and introduce her to the partygoers. Some of her fellow ballerinas might shoot her nasty looks in their resentment, but this was nothing to be worried about. She had experienced it many times over, and never suffered much for it. Then she would dance with several gentlemen, most of whom would likely be quite boring, and then she would go home to bed.

  As much as she had anticipated this evening’s festivities, the idea of returning to her warm bed in the boarding house sounded so appealing to Anna that she wished she could skip ahead to that part of the evening. Her muscles ached with exertion, though it was the good sort of ache that left her feeling satisfied by a job well done. Still, the thought of being on her feet dancing for several more hours was enough to make her yawn.