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Helen gave her a warning look. Margaret tried to stifle her laughter by placing a hand over her mouth, but she burst into laughter whenever she took a look at Helen—she could not help it.

“Sorry,” she said when she finally got herself under control. “Where did you find such bright-colored dye anyway?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know,” Helen replied, looking away.

Margaret snorted. Helen gave her a sideways look, and Margaret waved her hands in apology while trying to get her mirth under control.

“While I am happy to entertain you, I am not finding this situation particularly funny. The Duke is such a stubborn oaf. Even after I went to great lengths to make a spectacular fool of myself, he still insists on a promenade tomorrow morning,” Helen grumbled, with a sullen look on her face.

“I think it might not hurt to give him a chance—he might actually like you.”

Helen snorted in disbelief. “More likely he is planning to drown me in the serpentine.”

Margaret highly doubted that was the case. While Helen was trying very hard to deny it, even a blind person could sense the chemistry between them. She could detect the high flush on her sister’s face that confirmed the Duke affected her profoundly even though Helen would prefer to ignore it.

In Margaret’s opinion, the Duke was not half bad. He looked responsible. If not for her feelings for another man, she would have been happy to let him court her, but she believed her sister and the Duke had the potential to be deliriously happy together if they could put their egos aside.

ChapterFour

“You did what?” James asked, spitting the drink he had been about to swallow everywhere.

Alexander gave him a reproachful look, wiping his waistcoat with the table napkins provided.

If he hadn’t spent his three years at Oxford as a roommate with this man, he would have doubted his noble upbringing due to his brutish mannerisms.

“Sorry.” James winced. “But you have to admit that was rather surprising. Why would you get a special license when you are not sure she will agree to marry you? And even then, why don’t you just marry her properly? You’re a downright cad.”

His tone was full of disapproval but still held humor, so Alexander didn’t take his words seriously.

“Why would I do that?” Alexander asked. “If I wanted to go through all of that, I’d have gone through the whole ordeal of courting her. Besides, I’m the Duke of Blackhill…”

“And you always get what you want. Yes, but I’m not sure that applies to your beautiful betrothed if I’ve been rightly informed. How was tea with her yesterday? Was she everything you wanted?”

Of course, James already knew all about Alexander’s outing with Helen, even though Alexander hadn’t told him. Truly, the man’s network of spies scared Alexander sometimes, even though he frequently made use of his friend’s network to get an advantage over other competitors.

“She was just perfect. The perfect gentlewoman,” he answered, making a show of staring into his glass, swirling its contents.

Perfect was definitely not the word he would have used to describe his bride-to-be, but he would be damned if he said otherwise. James would have laughed at him, and there was only so much Alexander could take before he punched him.

The right word for her would have been a harridan because she had behaved so poorly that he would have been embarrassed if he hadn’t seen through her attempts to get him to call off the wedding.

Her beauty, even while performing her theatrics, had stunned him so much that he found himself struggling to maintain a grasp on his self-control. He had never considered a woman’s neck to be erotic, but since he met Helen, he had been consumed by a strange desire to kiss her thoroughly.

Her full pink lips were just begging for it, and her curves begged his hands to worship her body. When she had stood up to him in her father’s house, red in the face and neck, he had wondered if she flushed with desire the way she did with anger.

She had somehow invaded both his dreams and his waking hours, and he had woken with his member harder than it had ever been before after a night when he had been haunted by thoughts of licking and nibbling his way down the length of her neck and curvy body. He had come very close to acting on that impulse once.

A snort from James made him look up.

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“Because you’re a cynic who doubts everything he hears?”

“True, but I also happen to know a lot of things about you,” James said with a smug grin. “So, tell me what happened. I know you are holding something back. I promise not to laugh too hard.”

“I don’t know why I keep you around.”

“You do because I help you make money.” James laughed, rolling his eyes. “And because you’re secretly in love with me.”