Read Online Why Do Dukes Fall in Love?: A Dukes Behaving Badly Novel by Megan Frampton - Free Book Online

for her reply—he never waited for anybody, did he, he was coming to realize—just strode to the door so quickly the footman
     couldn’t open it for him. He held it for her as she followed, the skirts of her gown brushing his legs.
    “Ask Hawkins to bring glasses to us.”
    He led the way to the drawing room, conscious of her following him. Of her scent, of how he seemed to always know where she
     was in the room.
    He flung the door open and walked in, gesturing to the smallest of the three sofas in the room. “Sit there.”
    He thought he might have heard her muttering about orders and demanding dukes, but chose to ignore her. She was correct, after
     all. He was peremptory, given to issuing commands he expected to be followed.
    She sat, rod-straight, her body not making contact with the back of the sofa.
    “Is that comfortable?” he asked, nodding his head to where she sat.
    “Is what comfortable?”
    “Sitting like that. All straight up and down, not allowing your back to touch the sofa. All ladies do it, I’ve observed, but
     I’ve never really thought about it. It can’t be comfortable, though.”
    She raised a dark eyebrow at him. And then lifted her chin. His chest tightened in delightful anticipation of what she’d say.
     He had to admit, he liked it when she was feisty, even though he deplored it in most other people. In all other people, in
     fact.
    “It is not proper to comment on how a lady is seated, Your Grace.”
    He wanted to growl and laugh, simultaneously. Something about her made him want to needle her, to see just how improper he
     could get her to behave. That is, to speak. He didn’t want her to do anything improper. Even though he absolutely did.
    He should definitely change the conversation before he did or said something that would reveal just how intrigued he was by
     his new secretary.
    He should change the conversation—but he didn’t. “You do know I am not proper, at least not in the way you mean it.”
    She regarded him with her cool gaze. “And how do you think I mean it?” she asked in a deceptively soft tone of voice.
    Something relaxed inside him. Something he didn’t feel unless he was alone with Chester. Which wasn’t alone, entirely, since
     he found he spoke to his dog a lot more than he did to most humans.
    “Stuffy. Correct just because that is what one is supposed to do.”
    She arched an eyebrow. “But if we do what we are not supposed to do, then we have anarchy. Dukes do not do well in anarchy,
     or have you forgotten the French Revolution?”
    He waved a hand in dismissal, knowing it would irk her. Delighted to see the spark of it kindle in her eyes. “Those aristocrats
     were fools, not able to see how things were changing. Change needs to happen in order for there to be progress.”
    Another brow arched, so both were raised up on her face, making her look entirely skeptical. And utterly fascinating.
    “So you’re saying that we should all unstuffy ourselves for there to be progress?” She shook her head in mock disapproval.
     “Your Grace, then we would have no need of people like you.”
    People like you . The words rang in his head, causing a buzzing in his head. “And people like me are . . . ?” he said, stretching the sentence
     out.
    She frowned, as though annoyed. At herself? At him? “Not like you precisely, since you are you, but people in your position.”
    “You’re saying I am different from my position? And yet I would imagine few people can distinguish the person from the position.”
    “I can,” she announced, making that feeling in his chest blossom so it felt as though he’d taken an almost too full breath.
    Now he definitely needed to change the course of the conversation. Before he said or more accurately did something he should
     not. It wouldn’t be fair, to either of them. There was no possibility of anything more between them; she was his employee,
     not even remotely of his class. Even though he felt they were