One-Eyed Dukes Are Wild

by Megan Frampton

  “It means warlord. My father read history at Oxford, and Vortigern was some sort of leader in Wales many centuries ago. He thought it would shape me into who I needed to be. It is a stupid name, isn’t it?” the duke said, apparently not realizing she was mourning the loss of whatever moment this was, and still focusing on his name.

  “It is not a stupid name,” she replied fiercely, reaching up to touch his cheek, again, as she had before, and as she wanted to all the time now, now that she knew there was a hint of stubble, and the hard planes of his face, and the softness of his lips.

  That last bit she couldn’t think too much on, or she would start to behave inappropriately again. And the carriage had definitely slowed, so she would be getting out soon and couldn’t act inappropriately at all—at least not with him—ever again.

  “Thank you,” he replied, turning his mouth into the palm of her hand and kissing it.

  Finally the coach stopped, and the door swung open, and she stepped down, giving him one last look as she left.

  “Good night, Vortigern,” she said softly.

  “Good night, Lady Margaret,” he replied, his voice huskier than usual.

  Georgiana and the Dragon

  By A Lady of Mystery

  Georgiana trudged through the forest, wondering just how she’d gotten herself into this situation.

  Never mind. That wasn’t worth thinking about. The concern was how she was going to get herself out of it.

  She had to locate a prince, persuade him to return with her to the middle of the forest, and introduce him to the princess who wanted him.

  The princess who wasn’t shy about using her bow and arrow on someone who might not please her.

  Georgiana froze, took a deep breath, and turned back around.

  Chapter 14

  She had been thoroughly, completely, and wonderfully kissed.

  That wasn’t entirely unexpected, of course, given how she’d been assessing him, and his gorgeous face and body, and they’d already kissed, but she hadn’t been prepared for just how wonderful it was when he could put his full attention to it.

  Was he remarkably skilled at it, or was it just because it was he? Either way, she had been unprepared for just how amazing it was. And she rather worried it was both that he was skilled and that it was he.

  No wonder people liked to do it so often. She was surprised that people didn’t do it more; after all, she’d only ever seen other people kiss when she turned a corner in her sister’s house, surprising her sister and her husband in some sort of embrace.

  She hadn’t seen people just randomly kissing other people on the street, and given how it felt, that gave her much more respect for her fellow human beings. Because if there was that much pleasure out there, and people knew about it, it must take remarkable restraint not to engage it more frequently.

  It was how Annie felt about plum pudding at Christmas. No pudding was safe during that time, and it had gotten to where they kept them locked up so Annie wouldn’t devour all of them before the holiday itself.

  But the duke was far more than a pudding. And it wasn’t as though she could lock him away so she wouldn’t eat him up.

  Although that was an intriguing thought in and of itself.

  She couldn’t think about that. What she had to think about was her latest serial—she was seated at her desk, pen in hand, paper on surface, and no words were coming. None at all. Because all the words she had buzzing in her brain were things like “mouth,” and “chest” and “arms” and “delicious.”

  Not appropriate for what she was writing. Not even appropriate thinking, not for a proper young lady, but thank goodness she was scandalously improper, because she just couldn’t stop thinking about it all. About him.

  She shook her head briskly, trying to shoo the images she had of her day—him drawing up his shirt, clearly desperate for her to touch him, him looking so uncertain when he told her his name. Him kissing her with a passion so definite it was almost tangible.

  She shivered as she thought about it, clearly not doing a very good job of pushing the images away.

  “You getting a cold?” Annie said, pausing to glare at Margaret, a stack of linen in her hand.

  It had been nearly two hours since she’d arrived home, and she had a deadline, and all she had been able to write was the title of the serial and her byline. She didn’t think her editor would accept that for publication. Because if he did, she’d been wasting much of her time before this.

  “I am not getting a cold,” Margaret replied in a peevish voice. “I never am, even though you ask me constantly. And even if I were, I still need to finish this, and I am not finishing it.”

  “Too distracted, are you?” Annie said in a knowing tone.

  Margaret hoped she didn’t know everything.

  “Distracted? Of course not,” Margaret replied. Even to herself, she sounded brittle and forced. Something Annie would be able to pick up on right away.

  “Of course you are,” Annie replied with satisfaction. “And who could blame you, with that duke squiring you home.” She shifted the linen onto her hip. “And what did happen when the two of you were all alone?”

  He kissed me, I kissed him, and I can now say I know that he has hair on his chest.

  But of course she couldn’t tell Annie that, even if her maid would no doubt also be delighted. Not nearly as delighted as Margaret was, but still rather pleased. It felt too—too new, too precious, to share with anyone, even a trusted friend. No wonder her sister hadn’t wanted to tell her anything. It was all too much, and to try to explain it would take a better writer than Margaret was to do it.

  She stared down at the blank paper—well, blank except for a few words—and tried to concentrate on her story, knowing she could at least write what would happen to her heroine and her dragon, even if she didn’t have the slightest clue about her own life.

  If only she could write her own life. Although she wasn’t at all certain what she wished for.

  A few days later, Margaret had successfully written not one but three installments of her serial, placed the Banner sisters in full-time positions, visited with her sister and niece, won a fair bit of money at a card party at Lord Gantrey’s, and gone over her accounts to gauge just how much she needed for the next six months.

  She did not contact the duke. Nor did she go anywhere where she might see him. She didn’t visit the neighborhoods she had promised she wouldn’t visit without him, and she hadn’t sent any kind of suggestion for where they could go adventuring. She hadn’t even gone out to social events where she might run into him.

  And that bothered her, quite a lot. Nearly as much as it bothered Annie. As Annie’s question proved.

  “What are you doing, hiding away from him like that?”

  Margaret had just finished her breakfast, eating without quite realizing she was eating, too engrossed in not thinking about him, not at all, to pay attention. A stack of letters lay to her right, but none had his distinctive handwriting, and she wasn’t certain she would be able to comprehend what was said, given her current state of mind.

  Margaret shrugged, unwilling to pretend any longer she wasn’t doing precisely that. And why was she, anyway?

  “I don’t know,” she replied, her voice sounding hesitant, nearly fragile. She never sounded that way.

  There is a first time for everything, a voice said in her head, from the most divine kiss ever to hiding out because you’re cowardly.

  I am not cowardly, another voice said in a forceful way.

  Am too.

  “Well, it seems to me that you should just go find him and settle whatever it is you have to settle. You never did tell me what happened the last time you saw him,” Annie said with a significant sniff.

  “It sounds so simple, when you say it,” Margaret replied.

  Annie picked up Margaret’s breakfast dishes—not that Margaret didn’t have staff to clear the table, but Annie always found occasions to do things and fuss a
round Margaret, even though that wasn’t her job. The clearing the table, not the fussing part. The fussing part was absolutely Annie’s job.

  “It is simple.” Annie let out an exasperated sigh and raised her eyes to the ceiling as though having lost patience. No doubt she had. “What is the alternative? You hide out here forever?” She tsked. “The Lady Margaret I know wouldn’t be so craven.”

  Oh, that smarted. More so because it was true.

  She was being craven. But she was also being protective—she was a good enough writer to forecast what was very likely to happen: She would see him again, she would find herself filled with inappropriate thoughts for him, she might even act upon them, she would get to know him, and then she would eventually fall in love with him, which would even more eventually lead to a broken heart.

  She should just cut it off now, while her heart was still intact. No matter how wonderful it had felt to be held in his strong arms, and feel the warmth and strength of his chest under her fingers, and how he’d kissed her as though he were showing her how he felt, since she knew well he couldn’t say anything aloud. Not just because that would lead to other discussions involving marriage and lifetime and things neither one of them wanted, but just because she knew by now he wasn’t always able to find the words.

  But he certainly was able to find the actions.

  Goodness, how he had found the actions.

  She stood so abruptly and awkwardly she slammed her hip into the breakfast table. She had not accounted for the weak knees engendered by her current thoughts. “I need to go work,” she told Annie. “And can you go through the invitations and see what event might be the one I am most likely to see him at this evening? And then lay out my yellow gown.”

  Annie nodded in satisfaction. “Yes, my lady. If I may say so—”

  “And when has that ever stopped you,” Margaret cut in.

  “—you are acting more like yourself,” Annie finished.

  “Thank you, Annie.”

  Good evening, Your Grace.

  Margaret regarded the words on the paper. That was a reasonable start.

  “Good evening, Lady Margaret,” she said aloud, deepening her voice to mimic the duke’s tone.

  That would also likely be what would be said.

  “Your Grace, might I speak with you in private?”

  And he would probably regard her with horror, since it had been a week since they’d seen each other, and what if he was mortified at having behaved so, and was glad to be rid of her presence?

  Maybe not in private then. “Your Grace, might I speak with you?” Which was asinine, since by saying the words to him she was speaking to him, but hopefully he wouldn’t point out how redundant she was being.

  “Yes, of course, Lady Margaret.” And he would just look at her, waiting. Because that was what he did. And she would have to figure out what to say.

  Margaret swallowed and laid the pen down. “Your Grace, I wish to relieve you of your duties toward my forays into the disreputable neighborhoods. I do recognize I require some protection, and so I have”—and at this Margaret frowned, because she would have to have an alternate plan, “I have hired the services of a Bow Street Runner to accompany me.” It would be an additional expense, but it would be worth it, if she were able to rid herself of this inconvenient obsession. Of the possibility that he would have to say something along the same lines, later on, when Margaret’s heart was inextricably engaged.

  And then he would bow, to acknowledge his understanding, and then she would go find an enormous glass of wine somewhere.

  She picked the pen back up and wrote it all down, changing a word or two, saying it aloud a few more times to ensure it sounded reasonable.

  All the while wondering if she was being cowardly, or making the biggest mistake of her life, or frightened of her own feelings, or making more of the situation than it was.

  Or all of it.

  “Could I ring for tea, Your Grace?” Meecham sounded almost desperate. Lasham looked up from his desk at his secretary.

  “Certainly, yes.” He rubbed his temple between his thumb and forefinger. “What time is it, anyway?”

  “Nearly five o’clock, Your Grace.”

  Five o’clock. So he’d been sitting here in this chair for nearly six hours. As he had the day before that. And the day before that. For a week after the last time he’d seen her, when he’d kissed her, and wanted her to touch him, and told her his name, and she hadn’t laughed at him.

  And he still hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind.

  “Go ahead and order tea, Meecham. It will be good to have a break.” He would have laughed at the relief on his secretary’s face if he had had an iota of laughter in him.

  What was he doing, anyway? It wasn’t as though he could forget. Not that he wanted to forget. Not that he didn’t want to do it all again, and more.

  It was just—it felt too real, too close to an emotion, too close to making him wonder if he let go here if he would just let go everywhere, and he couldn’t have that. And more than that was that she hadn’t sent him a note, or anything, nothing to indicate that she was interested in having him continue to escort her anywhere, much less engage in adventuring.

  Although if he did find out she’d headed to those places by herself, he’d be livid. He would take several afternoons’ worth of awkward silence over having her be in danger.

  But he trusted her enough to know that if she had promised she wouldn’t go there without him that she wouldn’t. And now he started every time he heard the door open, or the low murmur of his butler speaking with someone, or when he received letters in an unfamiliar hand.

  Given that he had an enormous household filled with staff and his duties required correspondence and there was always bustling going on somewhere, he started frequently.

  Eventually he’d just been forced to immerse himself so thoroughly in his work that he neither thought nor started, hoping to banish all that unwanted emotion. All that unwanted . . . want.

  And it wasn’t working. Not at all.

  He was getting a lot done, however, so perhaps there was something to be said for trying to push away an obsession.

  He grimaced at his foolishness and picked up the papers on his desk. More money for improvements on the land, another bill to discuss in the House of Lords, various letters from distant relatives asking for help.

  All legitimately requiring his attention, and yet he couldn’t stop a part of his brain from thinking about her.

  It didn’t seem like such a good idea after all to try to forget all about her, not when he knew she didn’t expect anything of him, and that perhaps being with her could cool his ardor. Although he very much doubted that.

  He’d nearly gone to the National Gallery the other morning, desperate to catch a glimpse of her, but had stopped himself at the last moment. Was he a coward? Or afraid of revealing just how much he did want to see her?

  He wished she were here, so she could supply what he should say, if only to himself, to explain what was going on in his brain. Because he certainly couldn’t figure it out, and maybe he needed the help of a writer.

  Or maybe he just needed her.

  Meecham returned, sitting down at his desk. “Tea will be here soon, Your Grace.”

  Goddamn it. He might as well go ahead and do what he wanted to, the other way was definitely not working.

  “Are there any events this evening? Something for which I received an invitation?”

  Meecham’s eyebrows lifted, but that was his only reaction. “Yes, several, Your Grace. You had told me to decline everything,” and he picked up a stack of paper, “but if you have changed your mind . . .”

  “Yes, I have.” Lasham leaned back in his chair, placing his palms flat on the desk. “Find which one appears to be the most well-attended, and I will go.”

  “Certainly,” Meecham replied, looking as though he wished to ask a question, but pausing at the last moment. Good thing, too, since La
sham couldn’t answer what he was going to do. Or why he was going to do it.

  “Now, what do you think about this bill regarding the textile tariffs?” Lasham said, drawing the relevant paper from the stack.

  If she wasn’t going to find him, he was damn well going to find her. She owed him an adventure, at least.

  Georgiana and the Dragon

  By A Lady of Mystery

  Georgiana shook her head at her own foolishness, even as she strode furiously through the forest to where the dragon lay.

  How could she possibly go up against a princess? A beautiful princess armed with a bow and arrow, no less?

  She was just the daughter of a blacksmith, one whose grandest triumph thus far had been to fetch water without spilling too much of it.

  But if you don’t, who will?

  Exactly. The dragon would die, all just because he was a dragon, and the beautiful princess would triumph, and Georgiana would be haunted by the dragon’s mournful tone and desolation at having been betrayed by his beautiful princess.

  She stopped dead when she returned to where they were.

  And launched herself at the princess, who was tugging on the arrow in the dragon’s side.

  Chapter 15

  “The Duke of Lasham,” the majordomo intoned. As usual, heads swiveled toward him, but now he wasn’t as uncomfortable with the regard.

  They weren’t she, after all.

  He scanned the crowd as he descended the staircase, knowing his usual impenetrable mien would keep most people from approaching him.

  “Your Grace.” It was Lady Dearwood, the head of the amateur daubists. Who met monthly, once a month.

  “Good evening, Lady Dearwood.” He gave her a nod, and then fell silent. He didn’t have to work at being unapproachable, it just happened naturally. And when it didn’t, and someone did approach him, he just fell silent and waited for them to grow more and more uncomfortable with it.

  “Your Grace, the ladies and I are eager to hear your opinion on the new works hanging at the gallery. Would you be able to join us? It is perfectly respectable, I assure you,” she said with a titter, putting her hand up to her mouth.