Undercover Duke

and financial help for his brother. I don’t need to fatten his family’s coffers, do I?”
Uncle Noah blinked. “That makes no sense. And what do you have against Greycourt, anyway?”
“He’s Mama’s nemesis,” Vanessa explained with a sigh. “I don’t know which she considers worse—that Grey resisted her attempts to marry him off to me, or that I think of him as the big brother I never had.”
Mama snorted. “If you’d had a big brother, there would be no problem. Your brother would already have inherited your father’s estate, and we wouldn’t need to rely on my pitiful widow’s portion to live. But since you didn’t have an actual big brother, you should have married Greycourt.”
“Mama! I didn’t want to marry him, nor did he wish to marry me. Besides, he has been more than kind to us.” Especially considering how her parents had treated him when Vanessa was in her infancy. “Aside from my large dowry, he has paid the rent on our town house so we can remain in London, which is more than generous.” And he’d done it so Vanessa could find a husband. Very kind of him indeed.
“All the same,” her mother said, “I mean to make sure you don’t marry Armitage. If you marry Lisbourne, who by all reports is rich, you’ll have pin money to spare.”
Which Mama was undoubtedly hoping to get her hands on through Vanessa.
“But if you marry Armitage,” her mother went on, “and your dowry goes to the man’s debts, which it will, you won’t have any pin money at all. Indeed, Grey undoubtedly doubled your dowry because he knew he could get it back into his family by arranging for his penniless half brother to marry you.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Vanessa said. “Sheridan—I mean, Armitage—isn’t penniless. Besides, he has no interest in marrying me.” More was the pity.
Her uncle nudged her. “I thought you were friendly with him.”
“Not exactly. We know each other, and we’ve shared a few dances, but—”
Someone nearby shushed them, and they took their seats.
From the moment of her first dance with Saint Sheridan—she would never get used to calling him Armitage—the dratted fellow had relegated her to the position of pesky little sister, even though he was only twenty-nine years old to her twenty-five. By their third dance, Vanessa had realized she didn’t want to be his pesky little sister. She wanted to be his wife. It was most annoying.
Why him? He wasn’t her sort at all. Her firmest requirement was that the man have no secrets and be incapable of subterfuge—in other words, be as opposite to her late father as possible. So whom did she fancy? Sheridan, of all people, with his well of quiet that hinted at nothing but secrets. Worse yet, all she ached to do was uncover them, drat him.
Why was he the only man who made her blood roar and her pulse falter? Was her body that stupid? Because somehow, despite his aloof manner and a typically duke-like reticence she fought to ignore, he gave her goose bumps . . . and then goose bumps on her goose bumps.
She’d think he was playing some game to catch her, but he didn’t seem to play any games. He certainly didn’t seem to notice her in that way. Or care if she was drawn to him. It maddened her.
If she could just figure him out, she could prove whether he’d make a reliable husband. It was all she could hope for these days, with Mama going to increasingly desperate lengths to catch her a rich fellow. Vanessa lived in daily fear that her mother might trick her into being caught in a compromising position with the likes of Lord Lisbourne.
Fortunately, Sheridan wasn’t known to be a debauchee. Unfortunately, after their initial three dances, Sheridan had avoided her. At first, she’d chalked it up to his being in mourning. But mourning had ended for him at the beginning of last season, and still he’d kept her at a distance. Meanwhile, Mama had nearly thrown Vanessa into Lisbourne’s arms half a dozen times. One day she would succeed . . . if Vanessa didn’t find a husband herself before that.
Her uncle leaned forward to whisper in her ear, “If it’s not Armitage you have your eye on, who is it? Juncker, perhaps, as your mother claims?”
Oh, dear, this was a dicey conversation. “Mama doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
“No? She’s not the first person to say you’re enamored of him.”
That was her own fault. She cursed the day she’d told Grey she had a tendre for some unnamed poet. She’d said it just to tease him . . . and to keep him from guessing she really had a tendre for Sheridan. Because if he were to tell Sheridan and Sheridan were to disdain her for it, she would die of mortification.
After that, at Grey’s wedding, Sheridan had asked her, rather condescendingly, about the identity of the poet she was romantically interested in. First, she’d wanted to brain Grey for telling him about her “poet” at all. Then, desperate to think of a poet she might know, and having just read a book of Mr. Juncker’s poetry, she’d told Sheridan it was Mr. Juncker.
From there, her white lie had run amok with her life. Mr. Juncker had discovered it and had started flirting with her. Grey had learned of it and started teasing her regularly about it, while Thornstock had taken her aside to warn her about Mr. Juncker’s raffish ways. Even Mama had heard and now lectured her frequently about not being taken in by people of Mr. Juncker’s “sort,” whatever that was.
Out of that, however, had come one distinct advantage. Sheridan had seemed jealous. She couldn’t be certain, since he was mostly as inscrutable as ever. But having him regard her as a grown woman—no matter how infrequently—was better than not having him regard her at all.
Which prompted the question: Was Sheridan even here tonight? Leaning forward enough to see if he sat in the