The Duke’s Desire by Margaret Moore Page B

looked like a medieval monarch.
    “Jocelyn likes to make boats out of twigs and leaves and set them sailing,” Verity explained.
    “I always get seasick when I go sailing, I am sorry to say,” the duke confessed with a surprisingly sheepish grin.
    Jocelyn stared at him, wide-eyed. “You’ve been to sea?”
    “A few times. I much prefer to travel overland, if I can.”
    “The duke has been living in Italy.”
    “He told me when we were at Lady Bodenham’s,” Jocelyn said, grinning at her.
    “Oh,” Verity murmured, sliding him a glance and encountering that same merry, mischievous smile.
    A warmth blossomed within her, made not of desire, but affection.
    Or was her growing affection for the duke rooted only in a reflection of the deep love she had for her daughter, whom he had fathered?
    “I fear I have gotten rather twisted around. Am I heading in the right direction for Sir Myron’s?” he inquired.
    Jocelyn giggled. “No. He lives back the other way.” Then she frowned. “But I would be careful, Your Grace. He’s always shooting things.”
    “Not people, I hope.”
    “No, not people,” Jocelyn agreed. “But he might hit you by mistake.”
    “I look that much like a pheasant?”
    Jocelyn giggled again and Verity smiled, too.
    “No, you don’t,” Jocelyn said. “You’re very handsome, though.”
    “Jocelyn!” Verity gasped.
    The duke turned to her with feigned dismay. “You disagree?”
    “Mama does think you’re handsome, don’t you, Mama?” Jocelyn demanded eagerly.
    “I think the duke is not ill-favored, and I’m quite sure he knows that well enough without hearing it from me.”
    Jocelyn’s eyes widened, and Verity wished she had not sounded so snappish—but really!
    “I think your mother is very pretty, Jocelyn, nearly as pretty as you.”
    Jocelyn smiled and regarded her mother with pride.
    “I must say Italy is considerably warmer than England at this time of year,” the duke said as he pulled his supremely well fitting riding jacket a little tighter, and Verity was quite glad the flattery was apparently finished. “Jocelyn, if you sit on that log beside me, I shall tell you about the village where I live, if you would like.”
    Jocelyn nodded eagerly and did as he suggested.
    The duke looked at Verity. “There is room for you, too.”
    She lifted the basket that she had slung over her arm. “I am going to pick mushrooms.”
    “Oh, good hunting, then.”
    He didn’t look as if he minded at all that she wasn’t listening, she thought as she strolled a little way down the path. Well, what else could she expect? He was here to be with Jocelyn, not her.
    She went farther along the path, then looked back.
    Jocelyn sat as if mesmerized, staring admiringly at the duke and listening attentively, while he smiled down at her as if…well, as if he loved her as a father should love his child.
    She could believe that he did love her, just as she could believe his avowal that he was no longer the lascivious rogue of Eloise’s tales.
    Yet he was still exciting. Oh, yes, exciting and thrilling and altogether too tempting, perhaps even more so if he were as honorable now as he had been disreputable before.
    Making a few more halfhearted attempts to find mushrooms, she wandered back toward them, drawn by his deep, fascinating voice, as well as her own curiosity about his life in Italy.
    It sounded as if he lived very simply and quietly, with only a few close friends who visited from time to time. She wondered what he did to passthe days, for he was surely too vital a man to be content to sit in the sun.
    Then he spoke of the villagers, sketching their characters in a few well-chosen words that easily allowed her to envision them, from Guido, his tempestuous neighbor with an equally tempestuous wife, to the absentminded local priest, Father Paolo.
    He really was a wonderful storyteller, and if he were to confess that he had taken to writing books while he was abroad, she would have