Chapter 2

The Duke of Granville had too much assurance to blush, so the heat that stung his cheeks must be something else instead. Although he couldn't recall taking Lady Portia's hand as they fled, he must have. "I beg your pardon."

He didn't blush, and he didn't regret it one bit when he released her gloved hand. And his hand didn't feel cold and empty, once he no longer curled his fingers around hers.

Jupiter sat on the muddy cobbles in front of him, regarding him with an air of expectation that made him uncomfortable. He met the dog's bright brown eyes and told himself that the animal could have no idea of Granville's discomfort with today's events.

By God, he wished he'd stayed in bed in his mansion in Lorimer Square today.

He didn't want to be stuck heaven knew where in the most dangerous part of London.

He didn't want to share the company of an addle-headed Frain woman. All his dealings with that family ended in disaster.

Most of all, he didn't want to find Lady Portia attractive.

As he should by now have realised, fate or the universe or the Deity paid no heed to what His Grace of Granville wanted.

Self-pity was unforgivable, coming from a man with every worldly advantage. But he couldn't help feeling ill-used. He'd felt ill-used for years.

As if following his train of thought, Jupiter's whine sounded sympathetic. Which just went to prove that Granville really was losing his mind.

"Do you always carry a gun with you?" Thank the Lord, he didn't sound like he was about to collapse.

Lady Portia had come through the chase in better state than him, damn it. At least she managed to stand on her own two feet. Eyes the rich color of lapis lazuli surveyed him with cool dislike, familiar from his days courting her sister. "I do when I'm heading into the East End to rescue a dog. Do you think I'm a fool?"

Tact forbade an answer, although he suspected that Portia was well aware that he had no time for her. He hoped to hell that she hadn't picked up today's awkward reaction to her presence. "What the devil are you doing in Wapping on your own?"

The disdain that always nettled him arched her eyebrows. Except today he was too busy finding that haughty face beguiling to pay much attention. What in blazes was wrong with him? Had he hit his head somewhere and he didn't remember it?

"I don't believe you have any right to question my movements, Your Grace." The cool tone should dowse the heat in his blood like a shower of freezing rain. Instead, it made him want to kiss her more than ever. To wipe the barely concealed derision from those full lips until only passion remained.

"Perhaps so. But why not satisfy my curiosity?"

She sighed and brushed a wing of lustrous gold hair back from her forehead. "I've been tracking Jim Jones for about a week. He runs a dogfighting ring in Seven Dials."

Granville stuck his swordstick under his arm and picked up Jupiter's leash. With his other hand, he caught Portia's arm and marched her down one of the alleys. This built-up area might all look the same, but he had an inkling that he wasn't far from his offices. "The more reason to shun his company, I'd say. He's clearly dangerous."

"Dangerous to dogs, anyway," she retorted. Jupiter tugged at the leash Granville held. Their prickly conversation upset him. When Portia glanced down, her expression softened in a way that did nothing to quash Granville's sexual interest. "It's all right, Jupiter. You're safe now. Nobody is ever going to hurt you again."

The soothing murmur made every hair stand up on Granville's body. Just so would she croon her pleasure to a lover.

Who was never going to be him.

No amount of unwelcome attraction could make him stick his head into that particular noose again. One engagement to a Frain woman was more than enough, thank you.

Nor did it escape his notice that the mongrel dog received kinder treatment than one of England's premier noblemen.

He wished to heaven that he didn't notice how beautiful she was. He'd always recognized that she was a diamond, but he'd felt no urge to cut himself on those sharp facets. Now it seemed that he wanted her, no matter how she sliced at him.

"And I wasn't alone," she said. "Rankin, my coachman, was with me."

"Not when I met you."

"We lost sight of Jones when we got to Wapping, so we split up."

"That was a damned silly thing to do," Granville snapped.

When her eyes flashed annoyance, his grip on her arm firmed. Where did this sudden yen for obstreperous women come from? Her sister had always been so proper – at least until she turned out not to be proper at all.

She pulled free and stopped to glare at him. "I had my gun."

Granville stopped, too. They'd entered a more respectable part of town, a residential square of small, well-kept terrace houses. "Which has one bullet in it. Once you'd fired it, you were at the mercy of those ruffians. Do you think Alf would just let you go if you'd shot Jim?" The memory of his stone-cold terror when he'd seen her face down those brutes made his gut contract.

She had the grace to look a little sheepish. "I hadn't counted on Jones having an accomplice."

With another whine, Jupiter broke free. Granville waited for him to take off into the tangle of alleyways. Almost wished that he would. Even if Lady Portia was sure to set out in pursuit. But the dog merely shifted to lie at his feet.

"He likes you."

Granville told himself that he was being oversensitive to hear disbelief in Lady Portia's remark. "He recognizes the voice of authority."

"No, he's decided you're his master."

Dismay flooded Granville as he stared down at Jupiter. Who stared back with unmistakable devotion. "I'm not. I can't be."

Most men of his status kept kennels. Most men of his status had a normal upbringing where games and larks and friends and japes were part of the deal. Granville's grandparents had spent their lives training him to be the perfect duke. Pets weren't part of the arrangement. Pets were distracting and dirty and made a lad think of playing outdoors, instead of memorizing screeds of political history.

"You have to take him."

In general, Granville would crush the pretensions of any pest who dared to tell him that he should do something. That went double for troublesome individuals burdened with the Frain name.

But today set its own rules. For some reason, the cutting set-down that put Lady Portia in her place wouldn't emerge.

"I…can't." Even in his own ears, that sounded weak. He strove to strengthen his tone. "You rescued him. He belongs to you."

She shook her head and stepped back, physically distancing herself from responsibility. "He loves you."

Granville only just restrained a derisive snort. Love? That, like pets, wasn't part of his life either. Never had been. And he hadn't suffered from the lack.

Love, in his experience, made people do stupid things like break respectable engagements and rush off to marry scoundrels like the Duke of Evesham. Love promised an end to clear thinking. If the Duke of Granville valued anything, it was clear thinking.

"Well, I don't love him," he said shortly. It was high time he took control of a situation that threatened to break out of control. "He's going home with you."

Portia looked shifty. He wished to heaven that the expression didn't make him want to kiss her. It didn't seem to matter what she did today, he wanted to kiss her.

"Papa has threatened to get rid of all my animals if I bring back even so much as a canary."

Granville steeled himself, as a pair of limpid blue eyes changed from shifty to pleading. "Then you'll have to make other arrangements."

"Are you afraid he won't get along with your other dogs?"

His lips tightened. "I don't have any dogs."

Portia looked astonished. He couldn't blame her. The English aristocrat and his faithful hound were as much a symbol of the national character as John Bull and his shallow-crowned hat.

Along with astonishment, there was a hint of sympathy. After his failed attempt to wed Juliet, he'd become accustomed to people's pity. Pity that despite his wealth and prestige, he'd been judged second-best. Even worse, second-best a second time. In his youth, an engagement had ended because the bride had run away with the same sod who ended up marrying Juliet.

He'd loathed the sympathy then. He loathed it even more now. It made his skin crawl. Especially when it came from a blasted Frain.

He waited for Portia to say something crass, but while he might deride her as a nitwitted flibbertigibbet, she was smart enough not to remark on his loneliness.

Instead, that pretty jaw adopted a surprisingly daunting line and she focused a direct glare on him. "Then you've got room for Jupiter."

"I don't have the first idea how to go on with a pet."

The determined expression didn't ease. "You can learn."

His lips tightened. This inconvenient attraction almost made him forget how annoying she was. Lucky for him, she kept reminding him.

He put on the voice that had discouraged encroachments since he was at Eton. "My dear young woman, I have a country to run. The fate of one ill-bred canine hardly counts in comparison."

As he should have realized, the ducal tone didn't discourage Lady Portia. Her shoulders squared, and she stepped closer. Without budging from Granville's booted feet, Jupiter turned his head to watch her. "Of course it does. If a great country can't ensure safety for women and children and animals, it's not a great country at all."

Granville gaped at her. "That smacks of treason."

She shrugged. "It's the truth. Are you going to abandon Jupiter to his fate? I've followed your political career. I can't imagine the man who spoke so movingly about little children working in coal mines could be so heartless."

"Don't you dare try to shame me into doing what you want." His tone made Jupiter whine again. "It won't work."

"No, I can see that." He hid a flinch as disappointment flooded those beautiful eyes. "Even taking him for one night is too much to ask. Just to give me time to try and find him a home."

Granville should feel relieved. At last, she talked sense. He'd disappointed so many people in his life, no matter how hard he tried to do the right thing. His grandparents. His fiancées. Others too numerous to list. It shouldn't matter that Lady Portia was just one more.

Somehow it did.

"So you'll take him then?" he asked hopefully.

She shook her head. "I can't. Papa is stubborn, as you know. We'll have to let Jupiter go."

The dog's gaze fixed on Granville. Even the bloody hound thought he behaved like a cad, dash it. "Jim or Alf might find him."

Portia avoided his eyes but not before he caught a shimmer of what might be tears.

Great, Granville. Bravo. Three cheers for you. You've made the girl cry. They should give you a medal.

"He might be lucky."

Granville knew that Jupiter had no idea what the conversation was about. So that couldn't be reproach in the intelligent dark eyes. "You must have someone else you can ask to help."

"Everyone else I can ask has already taken in their share of mistreated animals. It's a huge problem in London."

Granville tried not to hear the break in her voice. He shouldn't care. She didn't like him. She'd never liked him.

Despite everything, he did care. He felt like the lowest worm on the ladder of creation. All because he'd upset a woman he'd once have been glad to avoid for the rest of his days.

"Perhaps my butler won't mind looking after Jupiter overnight," he said reluctantly. Partly because Sheriff would mind. And Granville had been brought up to consider his staff's feelings. The idea of introducing an untrained mongrel into the perfect clockwork of Dempster House was so unappealing, it verged on the impossible.

Portia looked doubtful, too. "Jupiter has bonded with you."

Granville bit back an irritable growl. "Then he can unbond."

"It's not as simple as that. I suspect he's had a hard life. I don't want to upset him."

This time, what Granville bit back was a sarcastic response. Upset Jupiter? What about upset caused to that esteemed personage, the Duke of Granville, whose ordered life disintegrated before his eyes?

"He's a dog, not a spinster great-aunt with a nervous disposition," he said with commendable mildness. "If I see he's fed and out of the weather, what in Hades else does he need?"

"Love."

Damn, that word again. He'd happily expunge it from the language. When he became prime minister – as was widely touted to happen before he turned forty in eight years – perhaps he'd draft the legislation. "The only offer I'm even considering for the animal is one night at my house, madam."

"In your company?" The scale of his generosity left Portia less than overwhelmed, curse her. "He'll fret with strangers."

"I only met him an hour ago. I'm a stranger." He could hardly believe that they discussed this flea-bitten beast as if he possessed all the delicacy of a duchess.

"Not in his eyes. You're his knight in shining armor. You saved his life. You can't abandon him to uncaring hands and people he doesn't know."

She was wrong about that. He could. Quite easily. If not for those big blue eyes watching him as if he could never let her down.

"This is a dreadful idea. I've never looked after a dog." He hated the waver in his authoritative tone. Hated even more that Portia would without doubt hear it, too.

"It's simple. Give him a bath. Feed him. Take him for a walk."

Now that he would indeed transport this misbegotten wretch of a dog to the pristine halls of Dempster House, the prospect of bedlam ahead filled him with horror. "He mightn't be house-trained."

Portia glanced at Jupiter, who continued to listen as if he understood every word. "I'm sure he is."

"No, you're not. You hope he is. That's not at all the same."

"He's clearly spent time in a household. He's trained to the lead, and he knows how to sit quietly. If he'd never been in human company, he'd run off and we'd never catch him."

Which right now seemed a preferable outcome. Although Granville didn't dare to say that. "Perhaps my fatal charm is keeping him here."

His wry remark made those spectacular eyes widen in surprise, and he recalled that she dismissed him as a dry stick, devoid of humor. It shouldn't sting. After all, he'd decided that she was an ineffectual do-gooder. But among all today's trials, perhaps the most astonishing was that Lady Portia Frain had developed the ability to affect his emotions.

"He might prefer men. Animals can express a preference for one sex or the other."

Every hair on Granville's skin rose as if he'd been struck by lightning. "Sex" wasn't a word well-bred young ladies used. While she meant it in the most innocent way, the sound of that short syllable on those lush pink lips had him standing to attention.

His cheeks were hot – this time, he couldn't even pretend that he wasn't blushing. Battling for self-mastery, he bent over to collect Jupiter's lead.

"We'll have to consider that when we find him a home," Granville muttered to the filthy cobbles, as he fumbled for the tatty rope.

He was in such a state that he only realized the quality of the silence had changed when he straightened. She surveyed him with a hint of uncertainty. That surprised him. Uncertainty wasn't Lady Portia's natural state. "Thank you. I wasn't sure you'd take him."

He frowned. "What the devil is wrong with you? Isn't this what you've been angling for this whole time?"

She didn't flinch under his impatience. He started to think that Portia Frain wouldn't flinch facing a cavalry charge. "Yes. Yes, it is."

"You can't keep him."

"No."

"It's only for one night."

"Ye…es." That emerged less emphatically.

"And we can't let him fend for himself."

"No." Stouter tone.

"So what else can I do?"

A tentative smile softened that cursed tempting mouth. If anyone had told him this morning that he'd be in a lather to kiss Portia Frain, he'd question their sanity. Now all he could think about was how those full lips would taste beneath his. "Thank you. I'm sure you won't be sorry."

"I'm not," he said shortly.

"Sorry?"

"Sure."

She spread her hands. "I'm very grateful."

He ground his teeth. "That's nice to hear. You're also going to be very useful. You're coming back to Dempster House to settle him in. And you're going to call tomorrow to take him away with you. I know you want me to adopt him, but that's not going to happen."

"Don't be ridiculous." She looked appalled. "I can't come to Dempster House. My reputation will be in shreds."

Given she wandered around the East End without a hint of a chaperone, her reputation was likely to be ruined anyway. "I'm not dealing with this animal alone. That's my condition for looking after him tonight. Take it or leave it."

She sighed and regarded Granville with familiar displeasure. She'd been turning up that pretty nose at him since he'd started courting her sister. "You leave me no choice."

"Very sensible. Now we just need to find my carriage and we'll head off." So far, he knew that he was going to upset his valet and his butler. Phipps would be offside, too, once a dog badly in need of a bath invaded the ducal coach's luxurious interior.

Portia eyed Granville with a lack of faith that stung. "Do you know the way?"

"If we angle toward the river, we should be fine." The river was always easy to find. It stank.

He hoped to Jericho that the carriage wasn't far away. He'd told Phipps to walk the horses while he completed his business with the shipping agent. He presumed his coachman had been looking for him ever since. Their paths should cross sooner rather than later.

He gestured for Portia to turn down a side street. "My lady?"

Only as they left the square did he realize that in his attempt to best her, he'd made a disastrous error of judgment. Even worse, he had nobody to blame but himself.

He was attracted to Portia Frain, mad as that conclusion might be. He needed to un-attract himself and soon, or he was doomed to nothing but frustration. A virgin of Portia's class only came to a man's bed after a wedding. However much he might fancy the chit, no amount of desire convinced him that she'd make a suitable duchess.

That was if the impossible happened and she agreed to have him. Jupiter would start conjugating Latin verbs before that happened.

Granville had to nip this madness in the bud, before it took over his life. The best strategy was avoiding the lady's company until balance was restored.

Yet here he was inviting her into his house and enlisting her aid and extending a contact that could only prove calamitous. By all that was holy, he needed to have his head fixed.