GUILTY PLEASURES MM

by GUHRKE LAURA LEE

• ISBN13: 9780060541743
• ISBN10: 0060541741
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

One of Daphne Wade's guilty pleasures is to watch the Duke of Tremore as he works, shirtless, on the excavation site of his ducal estate. Anthony Courtland is by far the most exciting and handsome man she has ever known, and she dreams of one day being able to speak with him without getting tongue tied. Anthony, meanwhile, only sees Daphne as a hard worker on his excavation team. He considers her a plain young lady and says so in a careless remark to a friend, unaware that Daphne is outside the library door, her heart shattering to pieces. So Daphne decides she will not be so silly any longer. She begins to be tutored in the social graces, forcing Anthony to see the beauty who has been right in front of his eyes.

Excerpts

Guilty Pleasures

Chatper One

Hampshire, 1830

No one who glanced at Daphne Wade wouldever imagine that she had a guilty, secret pleasure.Her countenance was plain, made more so bythe spectacles perched on her nose. Her hair waslight brown and fashioned into a functional bun atthe nape of her neck. All her dresses were varyingshades of beige, brown, or gray. Her height was average,and her figure was usually concealed beneatha loose-fitting work apron of heavy canvas. Hervoice was low and pleasant to the ear, with nothingstrident in its tone to evoke anyone's attention.

No one judging her by her appearance woulddream that Miss Daphne Wade had the rather salacious habit of staring at her employer's naked chestwhenever she had the chance, although mostwomen would have agreed that Anthony Courtland,Duke of Tremore, had a chest worth looking at.

Daphne rested her elbows on the sill of the openwindow and lifted the brass spyglass. Using the instrumentwas awkward when she was wearing herspectacles, so she pulled them off. After setting thegold-rimmed pair on the windowsill, she onceagain raised the spyglass to her eye. Through itslens, she scanned the archaeological site in the distance,searching for Anthony amid the workmen.

She always thought of him by his Christianname. In speech, she called him "your grace," justas everyone else did, but in her mind and her heart,he was always Anthony.

He was talking with Mr. Bennington, the excavationarchitect, and Sir Edward Fitzhugh, the duke'sclosest neighbor and quite the amateur antiquarianhimself. The three men stood in a huge pit of excavatedground amid the crumbling stone walls, brokencolumns, and other remnants of what had oncebeen a Roman villa. At the moment, they appearedto be discussing the mosaic pavements beneaththeir feet that had been uncovered by the workmenthat morning.

The moment she froze the spyglass on Anthony'stall form, she felt that familiar twist of her heart,that addictive mix of pleasure and discomfort. Itwas a combination that in his presence always tiedher tongue and compelled her to withdraw into herself until she seemed part of the furniture, but whenshe watched him like this, she always longed to bethe subject of his full attention. Love, she thought,should be a pleasant thing, warm and tender, notsomething that hurt one's heart by its intensity.

Daphne felt that intensity now as she watchedhim. When in residence at Tremore Hall, he waswont to spend two or three hours each day workingalongside Mr. Bennington and the men on theexcavation. Sometimes, if she was not on the digand he found the August afternoon exceptionallywarm, Anthony was compelled to remove his shirt.Today was a very warm day.

To Daphne, he almost seemed a part of the Romanexcavation around him, for Anthony was oneof those rare men who looked like a living statue.With his uncommon height of over six feet, with hisbroad shoulders and sculpted muscles, he couldhave been a Roman god carved of marble, were itnot for his dark brown hair and tanned skin.

She watched him as the three men continuedtheir discussion of the floor, and she felt that odd,melting sensation that came over her every time shesaw him this way, a sensation that somehow madebreathing difficult and made her heart race as if shehad been running.

Sir Edward bent to move a heavy stone urn thatwas blocking a portion of the mosaic from theirview, but Anthony stopped him and lifted the urnhimself. Daphne was delighted by this gallantry,which only served to reinforce her high opinion of him. A duke he might be, but he wasn't so over-proudthat he would stand by and let a much olderman like Sir Edward injure himself.

Anthony carried the urn to the cart nearby, placingit beside a crate filled with broken pieces ofwine amphorae, bronze statues, fresco fragments,and other discoveries. At the end of the day, thepieces would be taken to the antika, a buildingnearby where artifacts were stored, until Daphnecould repair, sketch and catalog them for Anthony'scollection.

The sound of footsteps coming down the corridortoward the library brought Daphne out of herclandestine observations. She pushed the ends ofthe spyglass together, collapsing it. As she movedaway from the window, she shoved the spyglassinto the pocket of her skirt. By the time Ella, one ofa dozen maids in the duke's employ at Tremore, enteredthe library, Daphne was seated at her deskwith a text on Romano-British pottery open beforeher, pretending to be hard at work.

"Thought you'd like some tea, Miss Wade," Ellasaid, setting the teacup and its saucer on the edge ofDaphne's large rosewood desk, beside the stacks ofbooks on Roman antiquities and Latin.

"Thank you, Ella," she answered, trying tosound absorbed in her book as she turned a page.

The maid turned to leave, saying over her shoulder,"Didn't think you could see a thing, miss, withoutthem spectacles. Seems t'me they don't do youmuch good sitting over on the windowsill."

The maid disappeared into the hall and Daphne lowered her flushed face into the open book beforeher. Caught again.

Still, could anyone blame a plain, quiet, self-containedyoung woman who spent most of hertime buried in ancient artifacts and Latin lexiconsfor being in love with her employer when he was soutterly splendid?

Daphne straightened in her chair with a sigh andrested one elbow on the desk ...

Guilty Pleasures. Copyright © by Laura Lee Guhrke. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from Guilty Pleasures by Laura Lee Guhrke
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.