Read Online How to Tame Your Duke by Juliana Gray - Free Book Online

Please put on your coat and fasten your necktie properly.”
    “Dash it, Grimsby . . .”
    “Dash it,
Mr.
Grimsby.”
    “Dash it
all
, Mr. Grimsby,” Freddie said, but he reached for his coat.
    By the time the coffee arrived at exactly eleven o’clock, borne on a silver tray by a simpering Lucy, Emilie had confirmed what she already suspected. Lord Silverton was clever, brilliant really, quick to grasp ideas and connect them with one another. He was also undisciplined, studying what he enjoyed with obsessive fervor and avoiding what he did not. He did his reading at night—into the morning, if absorbed—and took no notes. If a concept proved particularly difficult or unruly, he moved on to the next.
    In short, his examiners would shred him to pieces.
    “Your examiners will shred you to pieces, your lordship,” Emilie said. “Thank you, Lucy. You may go.”
    Freddie leaned back in his chair and pushed a hand through his hair. His eyes wandered to Lucy’s departing derriere. “Rubbish. I daresay they’ll all be sleeping in their chairs.”
    He was probably quite right, but Emilie knew better than to agree. “Your Greek is not unworthy, but your Latin is execrable.”
    “My mathematics, however, are excellent.” He reached for the coffeepot and filled his cup to the brim. “Coffee?”
    Emilie eyed the black liquid with suspicion. “Perhaps a little.”
    He filled the other cup and picked up the cream pot. “That’s how I win at cards, you know. Mathematics.” He tapped his temple with a teaspoon. “I keep track of what’s played, calculate probabilities. Easy enough, once you have the knack.”
    “But not without risk. You must have known they’d think you were cheating.” Emilie added a careful splash of cream and a lump of sugar. She sniffed the results hesitantly. It did smell rather nice. Earthy, rich.
    “Go on. It doesn’t bite. Unless you take it black, of course, as Pater does. Ah, that’s the stuff. Particularly handsome when one’s been up late.”
    Emilie sipped and shuddered. “He drinks this
black
? With nothing at all?”
    “He’s the do-or-die sort, you know. He probably thinks it’s dishonorable to add cream. Muddying the purity of the coffee or some such. Is that lemon cake?” Freddie stretched one gangly arm over the tray and snatched the cake.
    “Plate and napkin to your left, Lord Silverton.”
    “Oh, right. He’s not a bad sort, Pater,” Freddie said, somewhat muffled by cake, “but he’s rather implacable. Take his face, for example.”
    Emilie dabbed her mouth, remembered herself, and wiped with gusto. “What about his face?”
    “Ha-ha. What splendid manners you’ve got, Grimsby.
Mr.
Grimsby, that is.” He winked. “I mean, of course, that hideous mug of Pater’s, the one that makes children scream in terror and angels faint away. For twelve years now, since he returned home from whatever godforsaken adventure blew his face apart and took his hand for good measure, he hasn’t left Yorkshire, hasn’t received visitors, hasn’t attended a single event of a social nature. And do you know why?”
    “It’s no business of mine, your lordship,” said Emilie, ears straining for more.
    “Of course it’s not, but I’ll bet you’re desperate to know, aren’t you? You might think it’s pride—that’s what I used to think, and I daresay that’s something to do with it. But as time dragged on, and I began to acquire a bit of wisdom”—here Freddie gave a worldly sixteen-year-old shrug—“I began to realize it was nothing more than sheer bullheaded stubbornness. He’d begun by not going out, and by God he wasn’t going to change his mind midstream. And then my mother bolted . . .”
    “Lord Silverton,
really
. These are hardly confidences for a stranger.” Emilie ventured another sip of coffee. How strange; she was feeling rather dizzy.
    “Rot. Someone’s got to tell you, so you don’t go about making awkward remarks. Nobody likes an awkward