The Duke by Gaelen Foley Page A

look, turned, and strutted on ahead of him.
    Hawk stared after her, beguiled by her honeyed walk, then he suddenly followed with an odd rush of lusty exhilaration. God, she was a tempting minx. “I intend to win you, you know, so you might as well tell me everything,” he said with deliberate breezy high-handedness.
    “Do you really?” She turned and regarded him in wary surprise. “Harriette says you look down your nose at our kind.”
    He lifted her hand and placed a gallant kiss on her knuckles. “I am no more immune to great beauty than other men,” he deftly flattered.
    “Do you always know just what to say?”
    “Usually.”
    She heaved a sigh. “Oh, very well, but realize that I’m taking you into my confidence.”
    “I would never repeat what you tell me in confidence.”
    “I met Dolph last fall at a Hunt Ball. I had no desire to meet him, as I had noticed him standing all night by the wall making fun of us provincials, but he decided I was worthy of being asked to dance. He knew one of my neighbors and sought an introduction: I could not escape. It took me all of three seconds to discover how odiously obnoxious he is. Sir Dolph, however, took an unfortunate fancy to me and began pursuing me the very next day. When he realized I was serious in refusing his advances, his pursuit turned ugly.”
    “How ugly?” he asked, knitting his brow.
    “He had my father thrown in the Fleet. That’s how it began.”
    Hawk stopped and stared at her. “How did he manage that?”
    She winced faintly. “I’m afraid Papa is rather an obsessed collector of illuminated manuscripts. You would have to know him to understand. Everyone who meets my father loves him. Even our duns were never very hard on him. They would come to collect and he would drag them into his library and show them the latest manuscripts he’d bought instead of paying our bills. The duns would become caught up in his enthusiasm and let him go with a warning to pay next month, but he never did. Then Dolph came along and bullied the shopkeepers to collect. He promised to send them business from his London friends if they would only press for what was due them from my father. In no time, Papa was in the Fleet. He is there now— and here I am.”
    “And here you are? What does that mean?”
    She gave him a faint smile of dismay. “You know what it means, Robert.”
    “Pray, Miss Hamilton, what is your father?”
    “A gentleman—”
    “A gentleman? A man buys old books and leaves his daughter to sell her body or starve, and you call him a gentleman?”
    “Do not insult my father, sir. He is all I have,” she said sharply.
    Hawk clamped his jaw shut, but he was not at all satisfied. Apparently he had also pricked her defenses, for she looked riled and could not let it lie.
    “My decision to become what I am is not my father’s fault. It’s Dolph’s fault for taking away everything we owned. How dare you look down your nose at me? I had no choice.”
    “And what does your father think of you whoring to save his hide?”
    “Papa knows nothing of this.”
    “Famous as you’ve become, don’t you think it’s likely that someday he’ll find out?”
    “My father doesn’t even know what century it is!” she cried, throwing up her hands. Then she heaved a frustrated sigh and turned away.
    Hawk could barely contain his displeasure. “Do you mean to say that your father could not be persuaded to part with his cherished books even to save you both?”
    “He no longer owned the manuscripts. He donated them to the Bodleian collection.”
    “Oh, I never heard of such nonsense,” he muttered, exasperated beyond any need to hold his tongue. “Begging your pardon, but your father sounds like a fool. That is just the sort of thoughtless, irresponsible idiocy I despise—”
    Her jaw dropped with indignation; her eyes flashed like fireworks. “This visit is over.” She pivoted, her bonnet swinging behind her, and began marching away from him, not