My American Duchess Read Online Free PDF Page A

particularly of the emotional sort.
    But he was used to making rapid decisions when presented with new evidence.
    He would marry this lady because he liked everything about her, from her husky giggle to those facts she loved so much.
    She wouldn’t be a properly respectful wife, or even be an obedient one. But she would never be sly, either. She would be a very different duchess than his mother had been—which would be all to the good.
    He had had no idea that he’d been waiting for a particular woman, but it turned out he had been waiting for an American with glossy curls who would look him straight in the eye and not give a damn that he was a duke.
    Cedric’s bride could keep the diamond ring. Trent would buy his American a new ring. She was from a new country, after all.
    He would buy her a ring worth twice the purloined diamond. They would start a new tradition, and his ring would grace the hands of future Duchesses of Trent.
    Now he merely had to discover her name, arrange a proper introduction, and inform her chaperone that he intended to pay her a morning call. The request would speak for itself: anyone who overheard it would suspect that she was to be the next duchess. The gossip would be all over London by morning.
    Trent only discovered he was smiling when he met the puzzled eyes of a man he’d been to school with.
    “Excellent champagne, isn’t it?” Lord Royston said, raising his glass.
    “Yes.”
    “You haven’t any.”
    “I will,” Trent said. “If you’ll excuse me, Royston, I must find our hostess.”
    “You should get some champagne before it runs out. Last I saw, Lady Portmeadow was lurking near the refreshments table, no doubt to ensure that no one takes too much.”
    “Right. Well—”
    “Shameful, the way she laid out a plate or two of cucumber sandwiches and tried to pretend it was a spread,” Royston continued, staring so hard that his eyes bugged out a little.
    Had he really become so grim that acquaintances found a smile shocking? The man was looking at him as if he were a five-legged calf, as the American had described. The memory made him smile again.
    His lordship blinked uncertainly. “Heard your brother has found a wife.”
    “We both have,” Trent stated.
    “Have you indeed! Who is your duchess-to-be?”
    “I have yet to ask her, so I’d best keep it to myself.”
    Wry humor crossed Royston’s eyes. “Of all the men in London, you needn’t worry about a refusal, Duke.” He raised his glass. “I’ll drink to the prospect of matrimony, since it’s making you so cheerful. Don’t think I’ve seen you smile in years.”
    Trent bowed and made his way toward the refreshments table, in an anteroom off the entrance hall. He probably hadn’t smiled often, not when every minute of his day was consumed by saving the estate his father had almost bankrupted.
    But that would change after he married an American who had promised never to swoon, but who had looked slightly dazed after examining him from head to foot.
    Especially after perusal of his midsection.
    His body had responded to her gaze with a surge of raw lust. If they hadn’t been so close to the ballroom, he would have kissed her. Hell, he would have snatched her up and ravished her . . . after obtaining her permission, naturally. The thought sent another wave of heat through his loins.
    More than once during their conversation he’d had to fight an impulse to claim her lips. Claim all of her, in truth. Push her up against the balustrade and kiss her until those intelligent eyes were blurred with desire, and her clever brain forgot every fact it had ever contained.
    Sure enough, as Royston had predicted, Lady Portmeadow was hovering beside the refreshments table, watching cucumber sandwiches disappear down her guests’ gullets.
    He helped himself to a sandwich, just for the fun of it, and ate it as her ladyship rounded the table to him. Then he took another and ate that, too.
    “I am so honored that you were