The Duke's Disaster (R) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Anselm. Your Grace, Lady Antoinette Collins, my younger sister.”
    “My lady.” Noah bowed over the younger woman’s hand, and saw a smaller replica of Thea, one not so plagued by life’s injustices and realities. “It will be my pleasure to offer you a place in our home for so long as you care to join us.”
    Or until some pudding-headed swain came along sporting a ring.
    Nonie blushed and slipped her hand into a pocket. “He even talks like a duke.”
    “I take tea like one too,” Noah said, seeing smitten lordlings by the half dozen lounging about his parlors several years hence. “If that’s the plan?”
    “Of course,” Lady Thea said. “The parlor is this way, and bother it, Nonie, have we not a single footman to take His Grace’s hat and gloves?”
    “Not a one,” Nonie replied blithely. “They work until the pay runs out, then find other positions until the next quarter’s funds show up. I can take His Grace’s hat and gloves.”
    “I’ll hold on to them for now,” Noah said. When the party reached the morning parlor, he set his accessories on a sideboard. The curtains hung the merest inch askew, the rug needed a sound beating, and the andirons hadn’t been blacked in a week.
    Shabby in the details, but not yet desperate.
    The sisters were desperate to spend time together, though, based on the speed with which Nonie chattered on about some cat and the boot boy, and a bird loose in the pantry.
    “Are you packed, Lady Antoinette?” Noah asked when the girl had paused to take a breath.
    “I am.” She spared Noah a smile that was no doubt already turning heads when she walked in the park. “I’ll fetch my trunk down before we go.”
    “You,” Noah shot back, “will sit right there and sip your tea, while I see to your trunks.”
    He left the ladies in the morning room and found his way to the corridor housing the family bedrooms. A passing maid—cap askew, apron stained—pointed him to Lady Nonie’s room and gave him directions to Lord Grantley’s quarters.
    Noah found his lordship facedown on a bed and sporting one stocking only. The rest of him was sprawled across the covers, naked as a babe, snoring the day away.
    “Here lies the head of the Collins household,” Noah muttered. Grantley couldn’t be much more than twenty, his form hardly that of a man. The abundant evidence confirmed he eschewed physical exertion, and his hands qualified as those of a gentleman—or a lady.
    The young earl screamed like a female too, when Noah tossed a glass of cold drinking water on his back.
    “What the blazes!” Grantley slewed up onto all fours, shaking his head, then must have realized he wasn’t alone. “Who the hell are you, and why in blazes did you do that?”
    “I’m your prospective brother-in-law,” Noah replied, “and unless you want my boot planted on your tender and none-too-attractive backside, I suggest you get out of that bed and prepare to send your sisters into my keeping in, say, ten minutes.”
    “My sisters?”
    Noah smiled nastily. “You have the two, Nonie and Thea. I’m marrying Thea, the taller one, and she’s bringing Nonie with us for safekeeping. Your solicitors have the contracts, and the wedding is in three days.”
    “Three days!” Grantley bounced to the edge of the bed, then sat very still. “Shouldn’t have moved so quickly. Beg pardon.”
    Noah passed him the empty washbasin.
    “See you in ten minutes,” Noah tossed over his shoulder, heading for the door. “Nine and a half, now.”
    It took twenty, but Grantley managed a semblance of casual attire when he showed up in the morning parlor.
    He nodded at his older sister. “How do, Thea, and who’s your gentleman friend?”
    “Noah, Duke of Anselm.” Noah bowed politely. He held the superior rank, but they were under Grantley’s roof—and the ladies were looking on. “At your service, and it is my happy honor to report that Lady Araminthea has accepted my suit. The wedding will be at