The Duke's Downfall by Lynn Michaels Page A

he might have guessed the reason—the plethora of fans snapped suddenly open by madly whispering dowagers—but he did not, for he was intent only on locating Lady Elizabeth Keaton, putting paid to her designs on Teddy, and getting the blazes out of here as quickly as possible.
    By the thinness of the crowd he judged it would not take long, which suited his eardrums as well as his purpose. The walls were fairly vibrating with the loudness of the music, for Lady Pinchon was nearly as deaf as the marble columns supporting the ceiling. Already the fortissimo country dance was giving him a headache, but Charles set his jaw against it and moved out of the doorway.
    So far this was the third Society affair he’d graced in search of Lady Elizabeth. She and her grandmother had managed to stay at least a quarter of an hour ahead of him and the dozen or so pinks of the ton who’d been in hot pursuit of her all evening.
    There’d been near collisions and neck-and-neck races from one establishment to the next, which Fletcher had kept them out of at Charles's  insistence. Not because it was unseemly for a duke, but because the temptation of the chase set his blood singing dangerously. Emotion never solves anything, he’d told Fletcher, only logic and reason.
    Both of which threatened to fail Charles as he caught sight of his quarry, already run aground by the pack of young bucks he’d been trailing all evening. Scheming chit, he thought darkly, helping himself to a glass of champagne offered by a passing footman. She tipped back her head to laugh at some amusing remark as he watched her, the gleam of the chandeliers winking in the facets of the small diamond choker circling her throat. She’d hooked her fish, yet she was still casting lures.
    Or so it seemed to Charles, while Betsy was enjoying herself immensely. Thanks to the bits of lamb’s wool she’d brought along in her small evening reticule and stuffed in her ears to save them from the overloud music, she couldn’t hear a single syllable uttered by her noisome suitors. Hopefully, since her plan to evade them by whisking herself and her grandmother from one engagement to the next hadn’t worked, she was laughing at the most inappropriate comments and convincing them she was a total shatterbrain.
    Rash young fools, Charles thought scornfully of the gallants surrounding Betsy. To go haring off after a pretty face, to risk life and cattle to bask in the glow of a dazzling smile, to be the first to lead a Beauty out for a waltz ... to be two and thirty and never have done any of those things.
    The thought leapt unbidden into his head, with such ferocity that the stem of the goblet in his hand snapped cleanly in two. Champagne spilled over his fingers and he blinked at them, stunned, then looked hastily up in search of a footman, only to lock his gaze with Lady Elizabeth’s, just as she laughingly tossed her head in his direction.
    She froze, but only for a heartbeat, long enough for her eyes to take a startled leap from his face to the shattered goblet in his hand. Then her lashes swept down and she turned away. Still laughing, Charles noted, feeling gauche and ridiculously angry.
    Murmuring apologies, a footman appeared and took the shards. Irritably Charles pulled out his handkerchief to wipe his hand and wondered what the devil was wrong with him. The champagne, he decided. He was hardly foxed, yet he’d drunk more this evening than he had in the past six months. All in pursuit of the scheming little minx who had the audacity to laugh at him.
    But she was not alone, Charles realized, intercepting several sidelong glances aimed in his direction. He returned them disdainfully, and noticed that like Lady Pinchon, most of her guests were well advanced in years. Were they sniggering at His Dottiness, he wondered sourly, or His Dodderingness?
    Never mind that the nickname existed only in Teddy’s head, it rankled. Nearly as much as the realization that he shouldn’t have