Duchess in Love by Eloisa James Page B

friendly!”
    â€œI’d give a groat that Bonnington is lecturing her on her friendliness.”
    Gina looked again. True enough, Esme was starting to champ her apple, and a flush was rising up her cheeks.
    â€œShe would make a superb Diana,” Cam said.
    â€œDiana, the goddess of virginity?” Gina asked, with a touch of skeptism.
    â€œOdd, isn’t it? But she has a touch-me-not air, for all her friendliness. Perhaps I’ll see if she will pose for me.”
    Gina glanced up at her husband. He was looking at Esmewith the critical eye of a master jeweler assessing a perfect diamond. “I thought you were already working on a Diana. Won’t it be tedious to do another figure of the same goddess?”
    â€œNo. Each woman is different. Giving them the names of goddesses—that’s just putting a name to what you see in their faces. In the case of Lady Rawlings, she is provocative, beautiful, even erotic. But at the same time, she is distinctly reserved. I would guess that she is not sharing a bed with Burdett, for all she acts as if she is.”
    Gina looked at him with new respect.
    Sometime later she and Esme walked up the hill in silence, returning to the house. Gina was longing to know whether Cam watched them leave, or whether he turned blithely away. She almost turned, but Esme caught her elbow.
    â€œDon’t look!” she whispered, eyes dancing. “I’m sure he’s watching, but you don’t want him to suspect, do you?”
    â€œSebastian?”
    â€œOf course I don’t mean Sebastian, you half wit!” Esme exclaimed. “I mean your oh-so-gorgeous husband, of course!”
    â€œWell, I’m glad you think so,” Gina said tartly.
    â€œOf course I think so.” Then her eyes widened. “Gina, you didn’t think that I—”
    â€œNo, of course not!”
    â€œYes, you did!” Esme had delightful dimples, Gina had to admit. No wonder every man she met fell in love with her, including Gina’s own husband. “Don’t be silly. You know I have no use for intelligent men.” She tucked her hand into Gina’s elbow. “May I say one thing though?”
    Gina nodded.
    â€œI think you should keep him.”

9
A Slab of Pink Marble and a Contemplative Duke
    C am stared at the piece of marble three footmen had gingerly deposited on the Axminster carpet. There was no doubt that Esme Rawlings, with her generous curves and glossy hair, was as close to Marissa—and therefore to goddesslike beauty—as he was like to find in England. It even seemed possible that Esme would lend herself to such a risqué project as being sculpted in pink marble as a seated, half-naked deity.
    But somehow the idea of creating a shapely goddess of the hunt had little interest at the moment, not to mention Stephen’s insistence that he sculpt something other than a female torso. He kept turning back to the copy of Much Ado Lady Troubridge had sent to his room. In the throes of loneliness when he first left England, he had read Shakespeare’s plays over and over. Lonely for English hearth and home, for English phrases and English ale.
    But he never thought to play Benedick to his wife’s Beatrice. Well, he never thought of himself as having a wife at all, so why should he? But there Gina had been all the time he was reading Shakespeare, trotting around England withthat slim body and silky red hair, that indomitable curiosity and keen intelligence. Wearing his ring all the time, even though he hadn’t given it a second’s thought.
    He eyed the marble again. Gina would make a terrible Diana. She had a far too eager look in her eyes. The misanthropic goddess never regarded a man with Gina’s frank and appreciative gaze. Would never greet him with pleasure, as if she had genuinely missed him. Certainly the goddess would never write that delinquent husband hundreds of letters.
    It hadn’t occurred to him