The Wild Duchess/The Willful Duchess (The Duchess Club Book 1) by Renee Bernard Read Free Book Online

it—if there were no cards in this tray, would you not be pacing and growling about how ‘those people’ could have been so ignorant to have slighted your precious daughters?”
    “Of course.” He folded his arms defensively. “Your point being?”
    “My point being that you are not going to be happy with any result and wouldn’t most fathers be over the moon at the notion of a duke landing at their daughter’s feet?”
    “They would be. Hell, I should be but…I do not know the Duke of Chesterton.” Ashe stopped pacing, a bit contrite. “A duke undermines my entire strategy of arguing that no man is good enough for one of my Buttons. I mean to say, it’s a bit difficult to—not that I care what a man’s title is.”
    “You’re adorable and a terrible liar.”
    “Do you think it’s too late to insist that only a prince will do?”
    “I think you should stop fussing and help me sift through these.” Caroline lifted two more cards, one in each hand and frowned. “My goodness! Do we have to choose who to return to make calls of our own?”
    “No. If their intention is to call, you don’t have to do a thing except cancel every appointment you had for the next several days and see them all. It appears that the parade is in motion, my love.”
    “Are you going to be present for this parade?”
    He shook his head slowly. “As much as I wish to wade in, it is far too much turbulence to the waters to have a man in the room. All jokes aside about changing my clothes for my betters, I’m afraid this is your cross to bear.”
    “You wicked thing! I’m not facing this alone!”
    “Of course not,” he said quickly, all reconciliation and sweetness as he took a seat next to her on the settee. “Send for reinforcements. Eleanor would glory in wading through it with you and she has the prim weapons of a crown princess when it comes to the sitting room.”
    Caroline smiled. Eleanor Hastings was indeed a force for good and a staunch defender of the requirements of etiquette. She had married their friend Josiah who had become a renowned painter, a scandalous profession that his prim and proper wife loved him all the more for pursuing. “I’ll send her a note and then see if Lady Winters is in town to bring in the cavalry.”
    “Or we can turn them all away from the door. Tell them you’re too unwell to accept visitors and—”
    “No.” She cut him off firmly but softly. “I will not make more of it than I already have. Not showing up at our daughters’ debut is… People are already going to talk. I’ll not give them another excuse to gossip.”
    “Very well, but I want you to rest before the onslaught of callers.”
    “Stop hovering.”
    “I’m not hovering.”
    “Nor are you offering to throw yourself into the line of fire with teacups and sofas, Ashe Blackwell, so don’t make me throw this tray at you.”
    “Perhaps I should be hoping for a long dry afternoon filled with dowagers.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “For the girls, that is.”
    “What are you scheming over there?”
    Ashe rewarded her with a wicked grin, a nostalgic gleam in his eyes. “You never know what an encounter with a dowager dragon can do for a girl and perhaps dissuade them from the appeal of society altogether.”
    Caroline looked up from the array of cards in front of her, immediately aware of where his thoughts had taken him. “Lady Fitzgerald was not a dragon and if she inspired anyone, I’d hazard it was you, my dearest.”
    He bent over to trail kisses up the side of her neck. “I knew there was a reason I had a soft spot for sour-faced crones in feathered bonnets. Old Lady Fitzgerald made sure I took care of my Quaker and look what happiness followed!”
    She leaned into his touch, the fiery pleasure at his attentions undiminished after almost twenty years of marriage. She blushed but had accepted that no matter how much time passed, her handsome rogue of a husband would always have the power to