He tried out a pout that made him look as if he had dyspepsia. “I assume you’re choosing someone royal to imitate?”
“Close enough,” Joan confirmed. Viscount Greywick, future Duke of Eversley, was the most pompous, irritating man she’d ever met. He had courted two of her sisters, but thankfully, both Betsy and Viola had rejected him.
She concentrated for a moment to make sure that she could picture the set of his shoulders (arrogant, of course), the turn of his lips (unamused), and his gaze (verging on godlike because he never did a single thing wrong).
According to Jeremy, one of her brothers-in-law, Greywick had even been perfect at Eton.
A paragon.
A credit to the English peerage.
Everything she wasn’t.
Turning to face Otis, she let her features drop into an expression of aristocratic disdain, the air of a man who considered his bloodlines more important than his character. Or rather: considered that his bloodlines were his character.
Someday Greywick would be a duke, and as far as Joan could see, he never forgot that fact, even for a moment.
Plus, he and his mother were visiting the castle at the moment and would attend the performance of Hamlet. There was something deliciously amusing about the idea of performing Greywick before the man himself.
“Not bad,” Otis said, waggling his eyebrows. “You definitely have a royal look about you. But was Hamlet so condescending? I thought he was a nice chap.”
“Hamlet’s a prince,” Joan said. “He’s been told he’s better than everyone else from the moment he learned to walk.”
“I’d rather be arrogant than melancholic.” Otis tried pouting again. “Ho-hum, I’m such a watering pot. I think I’ll jump in a brook because the prince doesn’t appreciate my curves.”
“Let’s go,” Joan said, heading for the door. “We can practice our lines in the library.”
“You go ahead. I need to use the chamber pot,” Otis said. “Somehow.” He lifted his heavy skirts and let them fall to the floor.
Joan laughed. “It’s not easy being a lady. I’ll meet you downstairs.”
Out in the corridor, she stopped for a moment to readjust her rapier. The belt belonged to one of her brothers and wasn’t made to circle a woman’s hips.
Joan was slender, but she curved in the right places—or the wrong ones, when it came to rapiers.
She took the back stairs in a shortcut to the library, but once she reached the ground floor, the belt began slipping off again. Head bent, she was wrestling with the buckle as she turned a corner and walked straight into someone.
“Sorry!” she said, looking up.
Bloody hell.
It was he.
Chapter Two
Thaddeus Erskine Shaw, Viscount Greywick, was truly fond of the Wilde family. His mother was close friends with the duke’s sister, Lady Knowe; he had been school friends with His Grace’s sons and one of his sons-in-law.
But Joan was no favorite.
Her sister Betsy was clever and funny; her sister Viola was sweet and charming. He would have happily married either of them.
Joan had never been in consideration as his duchess because of her illegitimacy—but more importantly, because she was so annoying. Extremely annoying.
“Lady Joan,” he said flatly.
They’d stopped bothering to greet each other with more than a modicum of politeness sometime last Season. Sometime? He knew to the minute when their guarded hostilities had broken into open warfare.
On April 10, he had bowed in front of her and asked her to dance—for politeness’ sake, because God knew, he didn’t want to spend time with her—and she had been silent for a moment and then said, “You’ll have to forgive me. I have a headache and I think I’ll go home.” She hadn’t even tried to sound convincing, and since no one in London could lie as convincingly as she, the insult came unvarnished.
He had bowed again, whereupon she walked away. Though he had the satisfaction of knowing that his face didn’t change an iota, rage burned through his limbs.
A few minutes later, she walked past him, cozily arm-in-arm with the Honorable Anthony Froude. She had the damned impertinence to cast him a look before she drew Froude out onto the balcony and kissed the man senseless.
The next time they met, he didn’t bow; he simply nodded. She blinked as if she couldn’t remember why he was being so chilly, then gave him a scathing glance and said, “Took offense, did you? I didn’t think you were sensitive. Or perhaps you view me as beyond the pale. One can but hope.”
Once again, he had watched her march away.
And now . . .
Even here, in the dimly lit castle corridor, she glowed. That was the infuriating thing about her: She was exquisite. Not that beauty was unusual for a Wilde.
But she wasn’t a Wilde.
She didn’t have the duke’s dark brows, or his black hair, or his chin. Her golden eyebrows were the same color as her hair, and her nose was a perfect replica, albeit in a feminine mold, of the infamous Prussian’s.
That hair wasn’t what made her exquisite, to his mind. It was the way she spoke with her eyes. And her lips: No other woman had a mouth like hers. A deep bottom lip, a lush Cupid’s bow, and a natural tipped-up curve at the edges of her mouth, so she looked forever amused. Put that together with the way she laughed . . .
He shook off that idiocy.
“What in the bloody hell are you wearing?” he growled, annoyed at himself as well as her.
“Breeches,” she said, giving him an impudent smile.
“I see that.” Joan was a temptress at the best of times, but now? With silk tightly wrapping her thighs? “You can’t wear breeches.”
“It means so much to me that you disapprove,” Joan said. Her smile widened, and her blue eyes suddenly sparkled with joy.
He gave her a withering look. “I’ve seen you practice that expression for years. Surely you know that it doesn’t work on me?”
He was lying. He’d watched Joan flirt with every gentleman under sixty in London, and while he knew that it was just a performance—
Still, he was a man.
No man could encounter that practiced look of hers, the one that transformed her face into that of a sensual, laughing seductress whose eyes promised that he was the most desirable man in the world, and be untouched by it.
The expression wiped off her face, and she gave him an impatient glare. “Do get out of my way, won’t you, Greywick? My father knows I’m wearing these breeches, and he approves. I think we’ll both agree that he’s the only authority I need recognize under the king.”
Irritation swept up his back. He’d long ago labeled the Duke of Lindow’s attitude toward Joan as permissive to a fault, but this was verging on a blasphemy. “His Grace approves?” He forced the words out between clenched teeth. “He approves of you being seen like that?”
“You needn’t look so appalled,” Joan said, obviously unmoved by a tone that he used only in the rarest of circumstances. She cast him a narrow-eyed look. “If you’re not careful, you’ll end up even more righteous and intolerant than you already are. You look as sour as a Quaker in a tavern.”
“I look appalled because I am. You’ll be ruined.” He growled the word, leashing his temper with difficulty. Ruined meant that she’d be banished from polite society.