An American Duchess

His expression was that of a man who had bit into a lemon.

Her heart sank. She was going to be trapped in a house with this man for a month. Perhaps the house was enormous and she wouldn’t encounter him very often. Hopefully, he had a dining table the size of one of the Olympic’s decks and he sat at the opposite end of it.

They walked in silence along the uneven, muddy road, stepping around piles of manure left by the sheep. Then Langford stopped, and she halted, too. The duke cleared his throat and glared down at her. He intended to say something but, just as with the farmer, it seemed to take forever for an Englishman to speak.

“Is there something you wished to discuss, Your Grace?”

“Sebastian tells me you are marrying so you can have access to your trust fund.” His words came in a rush, as if they’d burst out on a geyser of emotion he could no longer contain. “That you plan to divorce immediately after you have achieved that goal.”

“That’s right.”

“Good God, Miss Gifford, have you no breeding? Only the most appalling women get divorced. As for planning to end a marriage before you have even wed...this I will not allow.”

Zoe squared her shoulders, ready to do battle just as her father would have done when dealing with a cutthroat business opponent. What had Sebastian been thinking? They’d agreed not to explain their plan to either family, knowing it would just cause trouble.

“I have better breeding than you are displaying, Your Grace,” she answered coolly. “Sebastian is a chivalrous gentleman. He’s saving me from a disaster, and he’s happy with the terms of our agreement. I have the contract drawn up, ready for his signature, and I don’t believe your consent is required at all. I assure you I’ll become Sebastian’s wife, just as we’ve planned. The settlement I am giving him is money he said your family desperately needs. We’re making a modern version of a transatlantic marriage—I need a marriage, he needs money, and we don’t need to make matrimony last.”

“You have no idea what you are doing, Miss Gifford,” he snapped.

If the Duke of Langford thought his scowls could make her retreat, he was wrong. “Sebastian intends to use the money to help your family. My trustees, who are solid financial men, are going to work with him to invest it. I think your brother is being very noble.”

“I refuse to allow you to drag my family into scandal—”

“A little scandal is a small price for financial rescue, is it not?”

His eyes narrowed. His eyes were vividly blue—like the sky over the beaches of California. The Duke of Langford had the same smoldering gaze as Valentino, who had once crept into her girlish fantasies about passionate lovemaking. From the right side, with his dark hair, slashes of black brows and glittering eyes, the duke looked so much like the seductive movie star, she almost forgot to breathe. “A decent young woman avoids ignominy. She does not embrace it,” he growled.

That shattered the mesmerizing spell of his sapphire eyes. “You’re a relic from medieval times. Sebastian and I both need a marriage of convenience. You’re stuck with me, whether you like it or not.”

“No bold, calculating American heiress is going to disrupt my family.”

“Your Grace, my arrangement will help your family. But it’ll be a pleasure to disrupt you.”

He glowered. “You are exactly what I expected of an American woman. Americans set my teeth on edge with their explosive, vulgar emotion. You gush, you flaunt and you have no idea of proper restraint. Your behavior in this is both vulgar and repugnant, madam.”

She yearned to slap him. But with his scars, she could not bring herself to smack her palm against his face. Apparently, she’d been misled on another aspect of the British. They were more blunt and straightforward than she’d expected.

Taking a step closer to him—her eyes were on level with his lips—Zoe lifted her chin with pride. “You set my teeth on edge. You are the most irritating and prejudiced man I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet. I’m visiting my fiancé’s home. It’s unfortunate you happen to be in it. And I suppose you don’t intend to send a car for my mother and me now.”

He bent toward her. A warm, exotic aroma clung to the duke—sandalwood, she believed it was, and he smelled of leather. For a moment, they traded breaths, his scented with tooth powder and smoke.

“I will, Miss Gifford. What sort of host leaves guests stranded in the countryside?”

She almost laughed. “Good.” She flung back her arms and stretched, as if thoroughly bored with the whole conversation. “I am looking forward to a long, luscious, hot soak.”

“A what?” the duke asked sharply. His boot twisted in a rut on the road and he fell forward an inch, his mouth almost bumping against hers. Up close his lips were full and sensual, and she was suddenly, breathlessly waiting for their mouths to collide. But before it happened, he jerked back and she did, too, and in a heartbeat they were two awkward steps apart, each standing at the edge of the cart track that was called a road.

Her stomach felt as it did when her airplane hit wind shear and suddenly dropped.

She had to be out of her mind. She hadn’t let a man kiss her since Richmond had, just before he took off on his flight over the Atlantic. She hadn’t even done it with Sebastian. She was hardly going to let it happen with an obnoxious, insulting duke.

Zoe jutted out her hip. “What I meant was a bath. You know: turn on the tap and fill a nice big tub with a lot of hot water and then soak in it. You do have baths over here, don’t you?”

Abruptly she was looking at the duke’s back. Without a word, he had swung away from her. Then he stopped and motioned for her to follow. “We do, indeed, have baths, madam. What we do not have are taps.”

2 (#ulink_859b2c31-f6f5-51da-9f8e-2b5b105d6084)

DRESSING FOR DINNER

The first dinner gong sounded.

Nigel Hazelton, the seventh Duke of Langford, stood in front of the mirror of his dressing room as his valet adjusted his collar and white bow tie, then gave one final tug to the shoulders of his coat.

“Very good, Your Grace,” Higgins said.

Even dressing for dinner had become a battle—a clash between the old ways and modernity. He wore full dress for dinner, which meant a tailcoat, white waistcoat and white tie. Sebastian usually appeared for dinner in the style of the Prince of Wales: a tuxedo jacket, once considered too vulgar for female sensibilities, and a black tie...and he slouched around with his hands stuck in his pockets.

Sebastian would look effortlessly elegant and laugh at his brother for being overdressed.

“A relic of an antique age,” Nigel muttered.

“Not at all, Your Grace,” Higgins assured him. “Such classic attire is always correct.”

Since Higgins had been his father’s valet, and now approached eighty, Nigel merely said, “That will be all, Higgins.”

With a bow and another respectfully murmured “Very good,” Higgins disappeared through a connecting door like a shadow into darkness. Nigel ran his hand over his now-smooth jaw, having been shaved within an inch of his life in preparation for dinner.

He believed in formality. He believed in the old ways, the old standards, in showing respect to one’s class and position.

But facing the mirror, he had no doubt Miss Gifford thought like Sebastian, considering the fashionable hat crammed on her short, sleek blond hair, the bright red mouth that smirked at him, the astoundingly short skirt she wore. When she’d swung her leg over the wall, the skimpy skirt had flown up, showing the entire length of her shapely legs, right up to the garters securing her stockings at her suntanned thighs.

He’d done the gentlemanly thing and looked away—at everything but those stunning legs. As a result, he’d jerked on Beelzebub’s reins and almost unseated himself.

He had almost embarrassed himself again when she’d stretched like a seductive houri and he’d stumbled and almost fallen against her vibrant, scarlet-painted mouth.

It had been a misstep, not an attempt at a kiss. With his scars, he wouldn’t think to kiss any woman.

“I should have known I would find you skulking in here,” chided a soft female voice, “when you should be in the drawing room.”

No American accent flattened the words and drew out the vowels, and he smelled the subdued scent of ladylike lavender. Not Miss Gifford. Nigel knew it was Julia, even before he saw his sister’s reflection in the mirror.

“I am not skulking, I am dressing.” He turned, and his eyes almost popped out of his head.

Julia had his silver cigarette case open in her hand. She took out a Turkish cigarette and put it between her lips.

“What are you doing?” He stalked toward her.

His sister picked up his lighter. “Attempting to smoke. Miss Gifford does it. She claims that smoking calms nerves. She also claims it keeps a woman thi—”