Pleasures of a Notorious Gentleman by Lorraine Heath Page B

injuries. Still, he didn’t like seeing the easy camaraderie between them. Nor did he like being left to walk with his own company. Of late it was sour and displeasing.
    He had a feeling that it was going to be a very long dinner indeed.
    T he seating arrangement determined by the duchess placed Mercy between the duke, who sat at the head of the table, and the artist, who was seated near the duchess at the foot of the table. His fingers constantly sought excuses to brush against the duchess’s—not by accident, Mercy was fairly certain. While reaching for their wine at the same moment or signaling a servant. Eventually the pretense that they were less than what they were to each other dissipated and Leo wove his fingers through the duchess’s and simply stroked her hand in between servings of the most delicious dishes Mercy had ever eaten.
    The bittersweet realization hit her that the duchess was the woman Leo had referred to when he’d said he was in love. She felt silly for not realizing it sooner, but she also longed for the same sort of declaration from Major Lyons.
    Not that it was likely to ever come. Even in the Crimea, even when they’d found moments alone to talk, it had been little more than talking. He’d never even attempted to kiss her. She told herself that it was respect for her that held him at bay, when in all likelihood it was her plain features. Or her height that sometimes made men feel awkward. Or the awful shade of her hair. Or perhaps he’d seen that she was dedicated to her service.
    At least three nurses had tittered about receiving kisses from him. One had received a good deal more. He’d certainly not been a saint. Not that she could blame him for taking pleasure where he might when any day would again find him in the midst of battle. Her own moral compass had lost its direction. She had hung on his every word, welcomed his attentions, prayed that they would be more than they were.
    The Crimea was not England. It was not afternoon tea, ballrooms, and chaperones. It was not innocent ladies. It was putting aside one’s sensibilities. Men needed to have their dressings changed, and wounds were not always in the most convenient of places. Men needed to be bathed, and turned, and fed. They were attended to during the day and during the night. They needed the comfort of touch and a gentle word.
    She remembered an afternoon when he’d escorted her from the hospital to her sleeping quarters. They were discussing literature, and he’d announced that Jane Austen wrote rubbish. Mercy had come to the woman’s defense. She wrote of love and people with frailties.
    Mercy had finally demanded to know, “If you think she wrote rubbish, then why on earth do you read her works?”
    He’d winked. “Because the ladies enjoy her, so I never lack for a topic of conversation.”
    Now, directly across from her, he watched her with increasing confusion clouding his eyes, and she wondered if he was beginning to remember the details of their association. It brought the heat to her cheeks to consider that he might be.
    She’d thought him incredibly handsome as he’d strutted about in his scarlet uniform, but she had to admit that she preferred him in his evening attire. His shirt and cravat were pristine white, but everything else was black. He’d taken some care to style his hair, she realized, because it partly covered the scar on his face, as though he wished to draw attention away from it. She supposed she couldn’t blame him for being self-conscious about it, but she viewed it as a badge of honor, more worthy than any accolade he might be given.
    Curling at the ends, his hair was longer than she’d ever seen it. John had inherited his curls from his father—and the light blond of his hair. She wondered if it would darken over the years to match Major Lyons’s exactly. She imagined it would. Already his eyes were the blue of his father’s. But fortunately, they still contained the innocence that was