The Duke of Olympia Meets His Match by Juliana Gray Read Free Book Online

thing I deplore, to be perfectly honest—in order to track down a certain person whose whereabouts had gone abruptly unknown.”
    â€œA dangerous man, sir?” Mr. Simmons rolled onto his toes.
    â€œEven worse. A dangerous
woman
, Mr. Simmons. A committed anarchist, who once nearly succeeded in revolution. She fled to the United States, where she has been under constant surveillance by that country’s operatives, until recently. Her disappearance is of grave concern to our American friends, to the British Empire, and to me personally.”
    â€œCan you describe her, sir?”
    â€œNo point in that, I’m afraid. She’s a master of disguise. But her name, should you hear it whispered in any quarter, is Dingleby. And now I believe”—grinding out the cigar, replacing the remaining half carefully in the case—“our hour of ease has come to an end.”
    â€œSir—?”
    But the delicate debutante laugh of Miss Ruby Morrison was already floating among the lifeboats on their divots, impossible to ignore. Olympia straightened his cuffs and strode forth, in the manner of an officer girding himself to lead an especially perilous charge. Except that he had no regiment behind him. Only himself, the Duke of Olympia, who was really too old to be engaging in battle with beautiful young American heiresses.
    But that was the trouble with Americans, wasn’t it? That unscalable ambition, that relentless optimistic striving for the very best of everything: frocks from Paris, grand hotels, bathrooms en suite. When it came to English aristocrats, only a duke would do.
    â€œMiss Morrison,” he said, bowing at just the right angle. “Mrs. Morrison. Mrs. Schuyler. I owe you my most grateful thanks.”
    â€œWhy so, sir?” asked Miss Morrison, lowering her eyelashes and looking up at him in the simultaneous maneuver of a born flirt. If she had a fan, he thought, she would flutter it.
    He flung out a gallant hand to the motionless blue sky. “Why, because you have called up that rarest of jewels, a mild March morning on the North Atlantic. Not a ripple to be seen on that vast and fickle ocean, and such favors are certainly not granted by God for the sake of an ancient mariner like myself.”
    â€œOh, what nonsense,” said Miss Morrison. “Doesn’t he talk nonsense?”
    â€œIndeed,” said Mrs. Schuyler, who hadn’t lowered her eyelashes a millimeter. She watched him instead as a sleek black pussycat, without blinking, without even moving. Altogether too patient.
    â€œI think the duke speaks with great eloquence,” said Mrs. Morrison, “and it reminds me that I haven’t yet told you the rest of my story, about the liner to Paris, oh, what was the name of that—”
    The Duke of Olympia turned to Ruby. “Miss Morrison, perhaps you will favor me with your company for a moment or two. I should like to point out to you the numbering of the lifeboats, in case you missed a detail or two during the drill. I find one’s attention wanders rather dangerously during these formal exercises, and yet, when you consider the matter, one’s life—or the lives of one’s less-nimble companions—might very well hang in the balance.”
    â€œSir,” Ruby said prettily, taking his arm, “I should like nothing more in the world.”
    He swept her away, but not before experiencing the keen satisfaction of Mrs. Schuyler’s disapproving gaze striking him neatly between the eyebrows.
    ***
    â€œThey do make a handsome couple, don’t they?” said Mrs. Morrison, gazing at the two figures against the opposite rail.
    Like grandfather and granddaughter,
Penelope thought.
    â€œYes, very handsome.” She drummed her fingers on the rail, calculating how many minutes of Mrs. Morrison’s preening she would be forced to endure.
    â€œIt would be a shame, don’t you think, if the duke were to find