The Duke Diaries Read Online Free PDF

your bumbling selection of sleeping quarters.”
    Nodcock? Bumbling? He felt a rare smile tease the corners of his mouth. “Spare the niceties, Lady V. Do tell me what you really think.”
    She stared at him for a long moment. Thank God she was no coward. But had she always been quite so outspoken? As far as he could remember, the last time they had exchanged more than five words strung together before finding himself in her bedchamber was when he had lived here fourteen years ago—before he had taken what he had thought would be permanent leave of this hellish corner.
    She finally shook her head with a mock look of disappointment. “If you are going to offer, one could hope you would give it a bit more thought and effort. I am James’s favorite sister, after all.”
    “I thought that was Patience or Perseverance.”
    She tilted her sharp chin up. “There is no Patience or Perseverance in the Fitzroy family.”
    “Don’t I know it,” he retorted with a grin.
    “ Hope used to be his favorite,” she said.
    He gave her a questioning glance.
    “Until she made the unpardonable mistake of making James’s fiancée look like a fool.”
    “But she is a fool.”
    “There, you see? Why is my brother the only one who could not glimpse beyond her infuriating beauty?”
    “Because he’s a man,” Rory said with an owlish expression pasted onto his face.
    “Exactly!”
    He bit back a laugh. He liked her. She had a lovely, open countenance when she smiled.
    She narrowed her eyes. “You do that very well.”
    “Pardon me?” He made sure to keep a look of cool indifference on his face.
    “That way of yours when you speak to ladies.”
    He was taken aback. “What way?”
    She paused to reflect, her eyes staring at the uppermost branches of the trees. “Of agreeing with us. Gentlemen are not expected to ever agree with us. Especially concerning your own sex. I probably shouldn’t have pointed any of this out for the sole reason that you will now employ it consciously to dupe a whole new legion of females.”
    “You look lovely, by the by, Lady V,” he murmured. “What is that fetching thing on your head?”
    “Oh, and your knack for changing the topic is top notch too. That ‘thing’ is a straw bonnet. Entirely uninteresting to you I am sure.”
    “There you are wrong, my dear V. It’s simply fascinating. Is it from the Georgian or Pleistocene era?”
    She refused to be swayed from the topic. “Shall we not have a go at the matter at hand? You know, the one where you are supposed to woo me and wed me in short order to save my soul or more importantly so I will not become the pariah of Derbyshire?”
    “You said it, not I.”
    “Well, you should know the only reason I’m willing to discuss this is to keep my dear brother out of the graveyard. Your war years are too much of an advantage and James would be the worse for the wear should he meet you.” She shook her head. “And I hate to arrange flowers. I would feel compelled to lay wilting bouquets on his headstone every week for the next seventy years, given the longevity of most Fitzroys.”
    “But you just turned me down. So now I’m able to wash my hands of you.” He tilted his head ever so slightly and took a long look at her. He hadn’t ever heard so many words from a female Fitzroy. Then again, most of the five nearly identical sisters didn’t have very much to say unless it concerned mathematical concepts that put him to sleep.
    She pursed her lips. “You could at least try a little harder to convince me,” she retorted. “This is your fault, after all.”
    Women. Would he ever understand them? Then again, he feared he understood them all too well. And it appeared that a large brain box did not take up any of the space for all things contrary. “Look, V, I’ll not fawn over you. We’ve known each other’s families our entire lives, and even if ours hasn’t been a deep friendship—”
    “And whose fault is that?” she muttered.
    He stared