Undercover Duke

me on your ‘brilliant coup’ last night.” Mama advanced forward, swatting Vanessa with the newspaper and forcing her to back up toward her room. “So while I lay ill in my bed, you had to defy me, dancing with Armitage not once but twice!” She thrust the article at Vanessa. “When you could have been with Lord Lisbourne instead!”
“Lord Lisbourne was in the card room the whole evening,” Vanessa protested.
“Exactly!” Her mother stabbed the article with one finger. “You could have been there, too, hanging on his arm, encouraging him, having intimate conversations. . . .”
For pity’s sake, what was her mother going on and on about? How could Mama have known that the marquess was even there when Vanessa herself hadn’t known until later?
Oh, no. Surely not.
Vanessa skimmed the newsprint. A few paragraphs down from the part about her and Sheridan, she found a mention of Lord Lisbourne.
Rumor has it that the card room was as lively as the ballroom. The Marquess of Lisbourne acquitted himself admirably, reportedly winning a pot early in the evening, with the heiress of Hitchings at his side.
This writer would be the death of her. “Mama, I can explain—”
Her mother sniffed. “Don’t bother. I know what you’re up to. And I don’t like it one bit.”
Vanessa tensed. Had Mama caught on to the real focus of all her hopes?
With one finger, her mother stabbed Vanessa’s chest. “You’re trying to make that Mr. Juncker jealous so he’ll offer for you.”
Relief coursed through her. Thank heaven Mama only saw things on the surface.
“Well, I won’t stand for it!” her mother went on. “Next time you see Lord Lisbourne, girl, you will cozy up to him or else.”
Vanessa’s temper flared. She could tolerate Mama’s machinations and ranting and attempts to marry Vanessa off, but she hated being called “girl.” It smacked too much of how Sheridan insisted on regarding her. “Or else what, Mama? You will throw me out in the street? You will try to starve me as you and Papa did to Grey?”
Her mother looked startled. No surprise there. She was used to having Vanessa ignore her behavior rather than make a fuss. “That was all your father’s doing. I had no part in it.”
“But you didn’t stop it, did you? Stand up for him against Papa?” She thrust her face in her mother’s. “I am not a girl; I am a full-grown woman who knows her own mind. I am not going to marry Lord Lisbourne, not now, not ever. Besides, I have it on good authority that the marquess is a notorious gambler with pockets to let, to use your favorite term. So he is only nosing around me because he needs to marry a woman with a generous dowry.”
Mama blanched. “That’s . . . that can’t be . . . It’s not true.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t believe you. Who is this ‘good authority’?”
“A very reliable one, I swear.”
“If you won’t say who it is, I have no way to assess the source,” she said with a sniff. “So you’d best be prepared to be nice to Lord Lisbourne, because—”
Vanessa sighed. “It’s Grey.” By way of Sheridan, but Mama needn’t hear that. “And you know Grey always comes by these bits of information honestly. You’ve seen him make good financial use of such things before.”
Mama glanced away, the uncertainty in her face clearly demonstrating how compelling she found Vanessa’s argument. “Well. Perhaps Grey is merely paving the way for his half brother to swoop in and take your dowry.”
“Come now, Mama. Can’t you see? It’s Lord Lisbourne who wishes to take my dowry.”
“I consider that unlikely.”
“Fine. Then you can marry him.” Vanessa turned and headed for her bedroom. “Oh, and by the way, he said he’s calling on us today, so I’d best get dressed.”
“What?” her mother screeched. “Why didn’t you say so? Good Lord, I barely have time to prepare!”
The last thing Vanessa saw as she went into her room was her mother hurrying toward her own bedchamber, calling for her maid and the housekeeper.
Precisely at three, when people from the previous night’s affair could be expected to pay calls, Vanessa slipped down the stairs as silently as a cat, hoping to avoid another private meeting with her mother. Vanessa already regretted the last one. She didn’t like it when she got angry and lashed out at Mama. It made her sound precisely like the child her mother made her out to be. She wanted to be in control of her temper. Papa had often gone into rages, and watching it as a child had terrified her.
Unfortunately, her mother brought out the worst in her. So Vanessa was relieved to hear from the footman that Mama was already downstairs waiting for her in the best parlor with their first caller.
Almost relieved, anyway. Because a peek inside the parlor revealed that Lord Lisbourne was their caller, and he’d clearly come “a-courting,” as Vanessa’s maid liked to say. As usual, he had dressed much too finely for paying calls—this time in another suit of velvet, but dark blue, with cerulean knee breeches, of all things. She supposed she should be glad he wasn’t sporting a powdered wig.
And why was the marquess obsessed with velvet, anyway? He certainly liked to be seen in it. Vanessa would think it was his age making him so unfashionable, except that her uncle of nearly the same age wouldn’t wear such a suit even in the grave. Surely Lord Lisbourne employed a valet who knew better than to dress him so.
Then again, she couldn’t imagine the pompous marquess allowing a mere valet to tell him what to wear.
He caught sight of her in the doorway and shot to his feet. That’s when Vanessa spotted what he held in his hand. Daisies. Oh, dear. This was going to be a problem. He’d brought her a lovely bouquet of daisies and hothouse roses, and he insisted upon handing them to her instead of asking a