The Duchess Read online

  She bent to look at the titles of the books on the bottom shelf as Trevelyan’s eyes ran over her body. He so much wanted to put his hands on her waist that his fingers itched.

  “Is it your own advanced age that makes you constantly point out Harry’s youth? My father does that with younger men. I believe it makes him feel superior.”

  She straightened and nearly hit Trevelyan’s face with her head. “All of these books were written by Captain Baker.” She turned to face him, bending backward a bit to look up at his face, as he was standing very close to her. Claire looked up at him and for a moment she stopped breathing. No man had ever looked at her as Trevelyan was now. In fact, she wondered if any man had ever looked at any woman as he was looking at her. His eyes, usually full of mocking laughter, were now full of…She wasn’t sure what was in his eyes, but it wasn’t laughter.

  She stepped away from him. “I believe you’re fascinated with the man, too, aren’t you?” she said hastily. “That’s why you take such offense when you think I’m criticizing him.”

  “What’s that thing on the back of your skirt?” he asked, his voice low.

  Claire gave a nervous little laugh. “It’s a bustle. Where have you been that you don’t know what a bustle is?”

  “I’ve been out of the country for years.”

  “You must have been.” She turned back to the shelves, took a few deep breaths and calmed her heart. “Here, I’ll take this one. I’ve read it at least ten times.”

  He took the book from her and read the title, The Search for Pesha, then replaced it on the shelf. “If you’ve read it ten times then you must be bored with it.”

  “I’m not bored with it, I—”

  He put his hand over hers and stopped her from taking the book down again. “I have something of his that you haven’t read.”

  Claire snatched her hand away. “But there’s nothing of his that I haven’t—”

  “It’s a manuscript of his. Never been published.”

  Claire drew in her breath at that, then turned and smiled up at him. “Show me, please.”

  She has the most readable face in the world, Trevelyan thought. Everything she thought or felt showed on her face. And now her eagerness, her desire to know was infectious. He would like to teach her more than she could learn from books. Reluctantly, he moved away from her, went to a small chest against the wall, withdrew a handwritten manuscript, and handed it to her.

  “The Scented Garden,” Claire read. “Translated by Captain Frank Baker.” She looked up at him and smiled her thanks as she held the thin manuscript to her bosom as though it were a precious and revered object.

  Trevelyan frowned. She smiled at him in delight, as a child might smile at its father, and he fought to control himself. This young woman was his brother’s. This was no woman of easy virtue who could be his for an afternoon. If he touched her there would be endless complications and repercussions. “Go sit over there and be quiet,” he said sharply. “I have my own work to do.”

  She didn’t say another word as she made her way to the window seat and climbed onto it. It took her a few minutes to figure out how to decipher Captain Baker’s small, spiky handwriting, but it didn’t take her ten minutes to realize what kind of book Trevelyan had given her. It was a translation of a treatise on lovemaking.

  There was a chapter on the beauty of women and it included descriptions of all parts of a woman. The next chapter described men. There were chapters describing positions one took in lovemaking, and following were funny little stories about adultery and various other forms of promiscuity.

  Claire read without so much as blinking. Somewhere around five, the tall dark man in white handed her a tray of fruit and some kind of bread and something in a tall metal goblet. She took the food, murmured, “Thanks,” and didn’t so much as look up from her reading.

  At one point she laughed out loud.

  Trevelyan startled her by asking what had made her laugh.

  “Here,” she said. “This sentence. It says that under all circumstances small women like…” She looked up at him. “You know, better than large women. It says small women are better at…it, you know, making love, than large women.”

  He looked at her five-foot-tall frame, her knees up, the manuscript balanced on them, her nose close to the pages, and smiled at her in an inviting way.

  Claire locked eyes with him for a moment. There were many images running through her head of couples locked in embrace. She shook her head as though to clear it, then started reading again. She read several stories that told of the treachery of women. Those stories made her frown. She looked through the rest of the small book but could find no corresponding chapters on the treachery of men.

  At one point, she gave out a loud “ha!”

  Trevelyan looked up at her askance.

  “It says that men and women can’t be friends, that it’s an impossibility. I don’t believe that and I don’t think Captain Baker did either. He—”

  “It’s a translation, not his own words. You should have known that by the fact that there’s not a dimension in it. Not one wagon wheel.”

  She ignored him as she continued reading. The tall man handed her a tiny glass full of liquid. She drank of it, then gasped.

  “Slowly,” Trevelyan said.

  “I don’t think I should drink whisky.”

  “Nor should you read what you’re reading.”

  She smiled at him, for he was right. She gave a little shrug, began to sip the whisky, and continued reading. The whisky made her warm and the contents of the book made her even warmer.

  At last she finished the book, shut it, and turned to look out the window.

  “Well?” Trevelyan asked. “Is it worthy of Captain Baker?”

  Slowly, she turned to look at him. Her head was full of what she’d read, things she’d never dreamed of before. She looked at Trevelyan, with his dark eyes, his broad shoulders. She looked at his hands, at his long fingers. “I—” she began, then had to clear her throat. “Of course it should be only privately published,” she said in a businesslike way. “But I think it could make money.”

  Trevelyan smiled at her in a patronizing way. “And what do you know of earning money?”

  Claire returned his patronizing smile. Maybe it was the light, but right now he didn’t look as old as she’d thought he was. “Unlike the British way of inheriting money, we Americans earn ours. In America a man—or a woman—can start out with nothing and earn millions. It merely takes hard work and foresight.”

  “Yet you’re going to marry money when you marry your young duke.”

  “You must not know much about the family or you’d know that Harry doesn’t have a dime.” She turned and put her feet on the floor. “I thank you so much, Mr. Trevelyan, for lending me this manuscript. It was most interesting. But now I must go. It must be getting late and I…” She broke off as she looked at her watch. “It’s nearly seven o’clock. I’ll miss dinner if I don’t hurry.” She put the manuscript on the nearest table, called “Thanks” one more time, then ran from the room.

  As soon as she left, Oman entered the room and picked up Claire’s empty dishes. Trevelyan looked at her empty whisky glass and at the manuscript she’d been reading. “She likes whisky and books about sex,” he said softly, smiling to himself.

  “She is a beauty,” Oman said in his own language, a language that Trevelyan had spent some time learning.

  “She belongs to my brother,” Trevelyan said as he turned away. “She belongs to his world, not to mine.”

  Chapter Five

  After a long, tedious dinner, Harry asked Claire to walk in the garden with him. She was very pleased, for all through dinner she’d thought about her day—and the man she had spent the day with. He was such an odd man, like no one she’d ever met before—and he caused such a range of emotions in her! One minute she hated him, the next minute she was looking at…at his hands.

  “You looked particularly fetching this ev