Home > Undercover Duke (Duke Dynasty #4)(3)

Undercover Duke (Duke Dynasty #4)(3)
Author: Sabrina Jeffries

“And with good reason,” her mother said. “The girl doesn’t have the sense God gave her when it comes to men. She should be married to Greycourt, but instead she dragged her feet, and now he’s married to that low chit Miss Wolfe.”

“That ‘low’ chit,” Vanessa bit out, “is the granddaughter of a duke just as I am. So if she’s low, then so am I. Besides, I like her.” Beatrice had proved a fitting match for Grey when Vanessa had despaired of ever seeing him wed.

“Of course you do.” Mama fussed a bit more over the turban. “You always prefer the wrong sort of people.”

“I find they’re generally more interesting than the right sort,” Vanessa grumbled.

“Like that playwright you’re enamored of?” Her mother shook her head. “Sometimes I think you want to marry the poorest fellow you can find just to vex me.”

“Mr. Juncker is very talented,” Vanessa pointed out, for the very reason her mother had given—to vex her. Despite his very German name, Konrad Juncker had been raised in London, having been born to German immigrants. He was handsome, too, with a winning smile, teasing eyes, and good teeth, but Vanessa didn’t care about any of that.

Her uncle huffed out a breath. “Are we going to enter the box sometime before the end of the century, Sister?”

“Oh, stubble it, Noah. The orchestra is still tuning its instruments.”

“That sounds like an overture to me,” he said. “Which is why the corridor is empty except for us.”

“Almost done.” Her mother finally left off adjusting Vanessa’s turban, only to give Vanessa’s bodice a tug downward.

Vanessa groaned. “It will just creep back up. Honestly, Mama, do you want me looking like a strumpet?”

“If it will catch you a good husband? Absolutely. You’re not getting any younger, you know.”

Her mother pinched Vanessa’s cheeks. Hard.

Vanessa winced. “I fail to see how pinching rolls back the years.”

“You must trust your mother on this,” Mama said. “I swear, someday I hope you have a child as recalcitrant as you. ’Twould serve you right.” When Uncle Noah cleared his throat, Mama scowled at him and opened the door. “Very well, now we shall go in.”

Thank heaven. Navigating Mama’s machinations and attempts to wed her to “the right sort” was as perilous as sailing a ship on the deepest ocean. One moment a light breeze carried it along on wings of silk, and the next moment stormy seas threatened to engulf it. She never knew which to expect of her mother—bad temper or cool disdain or syrupy kindness as false as it was cloying. Mama had kept her off-kilter her entire life.

“Are you expecting someone in particular tonight?” Vanessa asked as they entered the box. Her mother usually primped her, but this went beyond the pale.

Mama lowered her voice as she scanned the boxes. “I heard that the Marquess of Lisbourne might attend.”

An involuntary shudder passed through Vanessa.

Her mother went on without noticing. “They say he owns more property than even your cousin. And if he does come to the play—”

“He will magically decide to marry me because my cheeks are rosy and my bosom is half-bare?”

“Men do that, you know,” her mother said. “Anything to make him notice you is good.”

Heaven help Vanessa if Lord Lisbourne noticed her. She would have to join a convent.

“Lisbourne is sixty if he’s a day, Cora,” Uncle Noah said.

“A robust sixty,” Mama said.

And a notorious debauchee to boot.

Uncle Noah shook his head. “Personally, I think my niece should set her cap for Armitage. He’s closer to her age, very eligible, and related to your nephew.”

“But according to the gossips, Armitage has pockets to let,” her mother said.

“He’s a duke,” Uncle Noah said. “As long as he’s not a gambler, he can get money.”

Her mother’s voice turned steely. “Then let him get it from Greycourt and not my daughter’s dowry.”

“My dowry is provided by Grey, Mama. So Armitage would be getting the money from Grey either way.”

“Yes, but if Armitage uses your dowry to pay his debts, then Greycourt has kept the money in his family and hasn’t had to lay out both a dowry and financial help for his brother. I don’t need to fatten his family’s coffers, do I?”

Uncle Noah blinked. “That makes no sense. And what do you have against Greycourt, anyway?”

“He’s Mama’s nemesis,” Vanessa explained with a sigh. “I don’t know which she considers worse—that Grey resisted her attempts to marry him off to me, or that I think of him as the big brother I never had.”

Mama snorted. “If you’d had a big brother, there would be no problem. Your brother would already have inherited your father’s estate, and we wouldn’t need to rely on my pitiful widow’s portion to live. But since you didn’t have an actual big brother, you should have married Greycourt.”

“Mama! I didn’t want to marry him, nor did he wish to marry me. Besides, he has been more than kind to us.” Especially considering how her parents had treated him when Vanessa was in her infancy. “Aside from my large dowry, he has paid the rent on our town house so we can remain in London, which is more than generous.” And he’d done it so Vanessa could find a husband. Very kind of him indeed.

“All the same,” her mother said, “I mean to make sure you don’t marry Armitage. If you marry Lisbourne, who by all reports is rich, you’ll have pin money to spare.”

Which Mama was undoubtedly hoping to get her hands on through Vanessa.

“But if you marry Armitage,” her mother went on, “and your dowry goes to the man’s debts, which it will, you won’t have any pin money at all. Indeed, Grey undoubtedly doubled your dowry because he knew he could get it back into his family by arranging for his penniless half brother to marry you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Vanessa said. “Sheridan—I mean, Armitage—isn’t penniless. Besides, he has no interest in marrying me.” More was the pity.

Her uncle nudged her. “I thought you were friendly with him.”

“Not exactly. We know each other, and we’ve shared a few dances, but—”

Someone nearby shushed them, and they took their seats.

From the moment of her first dance with Saint Sheridan—she would never get used to calling him Armitage—the dratted fellow had relegated her to the position of pesky little sister, even though he was only twenty-nine years old to her twenty-five. By their third dance, Vanessa had realized she didn’t want to be his pesky little sister. She wanted to be his wife. It was most annoying.

Why him? He wasn’t her sort at all. Her firmest requirement was that the man have no secrets and be incapable of subterfuge—in other words, be as opposite to her late father as possible. So whom did she fancy? Sheridan, of all people, with his well of quiet that hinted at nothing but secrets. Worse yet, all she ached to do was uncover them, drat him.

Why was he the only man who made her blood roar and her pulse falter? Was her body that stupid? Because somehow, despite his aloof manner and a typically duke-like reticence she fought to ignore, he gave her goose bumps . . . and then goose bumps on her goose bumps.

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