Dukes By the Dozen полностью

“Our mother’s trimming the ranks. Those who don’t pass muster will be dismissed.” His brother chuckled at the flouncing skirts of one perturbed miss. “No biscuits for you, young lady.”

“You’ve used military metaphors all day,” he said dryly. “Do you see our ancestral home as a battlefield?”

George grinned. “With our mother hunting for your duchess, I expect a skirmish or two. She has exacting standards, and the competition is fierce.”

His duchess. A wife. He ran a finger between his neck and stiffly starched cravat. The mantle of ducal authority sat squarely on his shoulders, but the fit wasn’t quite right, and George knew it. It was why his ginger-haired brother kept vigil with him under the cover of a gnarled oak tree. Both understood a deeper truth was at play: restoring Richland after devastating loss. Their mother wanted laughter ringing in the halls again, the tapestries bulging with gleeful children hiding behind the antiquated weaves. She needed this next, inevitable step to heal. They all did.

George should’ve had his place in the birth order, but nature was a fickle mistress. She’d cast his younger brother as the family’s impeccable dresser with an ability to navigate social events with ease. At this very moment, a breeze toyed with the ribbon securing George’s queue, yet not a hair was out of place. If it ever was. The same couldn’t be said of him. A few strands escaped their mooring, sausage curls above his ear itched from heavy pomade, and new shoes pinched his toes.

“It’s all about finding a diamond in the rough,” George said between sips of tea.

They winced at Miss Pettyfer’s exuberant upward swipe, which nearly toppled a baroness and her daughter. Hips shifting, Miss Pettyfer took aim and swung her mallet with indelicate fervor. Whack! A yellow ball blasted across the green.

“Is that your gentleman’s way of saying they’re all too young?” He cast an eye to the south lawn where his brothers, Ethan and Edward, played a rousing game of cricket.

“I’m not sure of our mother’s strategy.” His perplexed brother shook his head. “Or why she chose such a…youthful array of guests.”

“Every eligible lady here could’ve been nursery playmates to the twins. Makes me feel ancient.”

Handsome and ruddy, Ethan and Edward were the toast of Eton. Smart, well-mannered, and charming to boot, they seized every bit of joy to be had in their late May half-term. He grinned at their zeal. The mayhem was good. Richland had been a tomb.

With the exception of one woman who swanned about on a steady basis.

Mrs. Chatham. Their neighbor and his mother’s friend. She was older than him, a widow solidly in her third decade. With a smile too bright, her manner too friendly, and laugh too loud, she was a shade out of touch with proper decorum. Probably from her long rustication in Kent. Other ladies sat ramrod straight in Hepplewhite chairs under the fluttering canopy. Not Mrs. Chatham. Her spine had bumped her chair’s back rest several times this morning.

Yet, she was a tempting morsel.

He’d collected brief junctures with the widow since her arrival in Kent two years past. He’d savored them like a miser: the sight of her unshod foot tucked under her bottom when idling in the salon, an afternoon consoling his mother with a basket of kittens, and then there was the day she thrusted an armful of hydrangeas on the dowager. His mother’s smile had shined brighter than the sun from that simple, touching gift.

Mrs. Chatham’s passion for gardening was legendary. It seemed to fill her days, but he couldn’t say how she filled her nights.

Everyone knew attractive widows gadded about.

And glory in her independence, she did…like two of her honey-colored locks which had tumbled free of their pins. The effect was too messy to be artful wisps. One curled tip teetered over her velvet-clad bosom.

His fist pressed harder into the small of his back.

What would it feel like to run my fingers through her hair?

Air huffed past his lips. He was on the brink of dangerous ground. Twice today, her dark-eyed stare had collided with his, stealing his breath.

These episodes were increasing. More furtive glances. More ambles near Mrs. Chatham for the thrill of hearing her amiable voice. This had to stop.

At the moment, she was a comfortable distance away under the canopy. A breeze sent her serviette tumbling down her burgundy skirt. She tipped forward to retrieve it, giving him a sublime view of delicate breasts, sugar-white, and of tempting size. They were perfect. Of course, they were; they were attached to her.

“Smile at them, Richland,” George coaxed.

At Mrs. Chatham’s breasts? “That’s beyond the pale,” he sputtered.

His brother looked askance at him. “Why? You’ll have to dance with them tonight.”

He shut his one good eye. “You mean the young ladies in attendance.”