How to Dazzle a Duke Read Online Free PDF

that. It’s Edenham you fancy. Am
    I right?”
    “He’s a duke, George. Of course I fancy him. Don’t think
    yourself as wise as all that.”
    “Oh, not as all that,” George said with a grin. “But wise
    enough, surely.”
    And then he did begin to whistle.
    6
    THE Marquis of Iveston walked into the music room of Hyde
    House whistling. Everything was just as it should be. Blakes was
    married to Louisa, the woman he’d trotted after throughout the
    salons of London for two years, and Cranleigh was married to
    Amelia, the woman he’d either kissed or avoided for the past two
    years, depending on his mood of the day. All good and well,
    things settled as they ought to have been two years ago when his
    brothers had first set eyes on the women of their hearts, but which
    hadn’t been settled easily at all, and certainly not quickly, which
    had made a bloody mess of everything.
    Still, spilt milk and all that. Things were as they were and
    were well settled now. That was all that mattered, all that should
    matter. Indeed, just because he had spent the past two years very
    nearly hiding in his house, trying to avoid Amelia, who he was
    quite certain had expected to marry him , well, why shouldn’t
    he whistle? He was free now to go about Town as much as he
    liked.
    He didn’t like to all that much, truth be told, but he liked it
    more than he had let on. He’d had to protect Cranleigh, hadn’t
    he? Of course he had. It wouldn’t have done at all for him to have
    somehow wound up being leg-shackled to Amelia. And he could
    have done. Men found themselves married at alarming rates,
    How to Daz zle a Duke
    25
    truly alarming. A man had to be quite on his best game to avoid
    the net.
    Iveston, with quite justified pride, was always on his best
    game.
    Two brothers married within the month and he still free. It
    was a good day, quite worthy of a hearty whistle. His mother
    must be satisfied now; two sons married to very respectable
    women. She could and should nearly forget that her eldest and
    Hyde’s heir was still running free upon the earth.
    Yes, that is how he thought of himself, first and always, as
    Hyde’s heir. What else? It was his duty, his birthright, his place
    in the scheme of the things. He didn’t quite know if he liked his
    place or not. Hadn’t given it any thought, actually, as there was
    nothing to be done about it.
    There were worse things, certainly.
    He could be married, for one.
    Iveston chuckled under his breath and whistled a tune he’d
    heard just that morning from a street vendor on Piccadilly, just
    beyond his window glass. Jaunty little tune. He quite liked it.
    Suited his mood to perfection.
    “What are you so cheerful about?” Cranleigh said, coming
    upon him, some parcel shoved under his arm.
    “I’m cheerful for the same reason you’re not. I’m not mar
    ried. You are,” Iveston said, and then he laughed, quite fully in
    his younger brother’s face. Cranleigh, not the most cordial of
    men, did not laugh with him. Well, Iveston hadn’t truly expected
    him to.
    Cranleigh, as second born of Hyde’s fi ve living sons, was not
    often of a cheerful bent. Probably a direct result of being second
    born and, thereby, feeling some ill-placed notion that he had to
    protect and support Iveston in every blessed thing. It was quite
    nice of him, naturally, but entirely unnecessary. Iveston required
    26 CLAUDIA DAIN
    no support and no protection, though Cranleigh, a bit of a dockside dog, would hardly have agreed, not that Iveston was at all
    inclined to put it up for a vote.
    “Ridiculous,” Cranleigh snarled under his breath, a smile half
    tugging at his mouth. “You’ve got it entirely wrong, Iveston. I am
    merely out of sorts because I am on my way to Dalby House.
    Delivering a gift of sorts to Lady Dalby. Which would put anyone
    of any sense into an ill temper.”
    “A gift?” Iveston said, sitting himself in front of the pianoforte
    and beginning to play. “How very unlike