Ten Things I Hate About the Duke (Difficult Dukes, #2)

by Loretta Chase

Since Keeffe is ashamed of his writing (his hand, as you may know, along with other parts, was broken in the racing catastrophe), he has asked me to communicate to you his thanks for the painting. Had you given him one of your champagne banquets, complete with the usual bevy of insufficiently clothed opera dancers, he could not have been happier—or so he assures me, but since he is a man, I strongly doubt it. In any event, you have succeeded in pleasing and flattering him and raising his spirits to a surprising degree. For this I allot you one point. When you accumulate another five thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine, I shall begin to consider you a tolerable human being.

She grasped his shoulders and shook him. “Today you were everything I ever wanted you to be. Oh, Lucius, what am I to do with you?” “Wait.” His spirits had lifted and sunk and risen again at a dizzying rate. They rose once more. “You’re not disappointed. I’m . . . splendid.”

It’s easy enough to go about knocking people down and defending honor and all that. But to read A Vindication of the Rights of Woman—I could swoon, and I never swoon.”