Chapter 3

Up close, the Duke of Dawford was even more intimidating. His size gave Dorothy no doubt that he could pick her up with a single hand if he chose. Surely, he would not. But what could his intention be?

She automatically raised one of her own hands to free her shoulder, but his grip was too firm, and she realized her fingers were only pressing without effect on his warm skin. Neither of them had been wearing gloves, and this was a closer encounter with a man than any Dorothy had experienced on a dance floor or while embarking or disembarking during boating parties.

"Take your hand off me!" she ordered, without any idea of what she would do if he failed to obey.

Fortunately, she felt his fingers relax and lift at her words before realizing with a gasp of horror that she was still somehow holding onto his hand as it moved.

Rapidly withdrawing her own hand, Dorothy wrapped her shawl even tighter around her shoulders. This encounter was becoming more awkward, confusing and potentially dangerous with every passing minute, and she knew that the Duke of Dawford must feel it too.

After the earlier anger and confusion, Dorothy could now see a third emotion creeping across his darkly handsome features, although she did not know the right words to describe it.

Now the Duke was looking at her with something akin to fascination and disbelief, his gaze seeking her own with an intensity that equally unnerved and excited her. When their eyes finally met, it felt like a kind of physical contact in itself. Did he feel it too?

"Does anyone even know that you are here?" he asked, his voice quieter but also slightly rougher than before. "God! They don't, do they?"

Dorothy could not tear her eyes away from his strained features, seeing also the tightness of his jaw, and the vein throbbing in his throat. Even his breathing was visible, a little too fast and effortful for comfort but somehow in sync with her own. Was this man angry, confused, or… what?

Long seconds passed, the strange tension between them only growing.

While neither of them had deliberately moved forward, the Duke still seemed to have drawn closer. There was a faint sheen of perspiration on his forehead, as though he were making some great effort. The touch of warm air on her cheek might have been the breeze from the garden, but might also have been his breath.

It occurred to Dorothy then that he might be about to kiss her. Given their difference in size, she knew that she would not be able to protest or offer resistance to anything he might do next…

"You must be more careful, Miss Hoskins," the Duke of Dawford said at last, with some consternation. "You cannot talk to me like this."

From his words and his puzzling but undeniable reaction to her, Dorothy wondered whether any woman had ever stood up to him before, even in the simplest of situations. His manner suggested that perhaps they had not.

"I think you'll find that I can," she challenged him, and enjoyed the way his eyes widened and he took a step back in surprise.

Quickly, while she had some slight advantage, Dorothy rushed back out into the garden and marched briskly along the path to the gate, glancing back only once to be sure that she had not been followed.

Dorothy did not tell her father or Patrick of any of the events that had transpired that afternoon. She'd had enough censure for one day.

Instead, she took a long bath and had one of the maids wash her hair, allowing her to remain closeted in her room for long hours without interruption.

While nothing truly untoward had happened during her short visit to their neighbor's house, Dorothy felt disturbed by the encounter. Once safely back under her father's roof, she had found that her dress was damp with sweat, her heart beating rapidly and her legs not entirely steady, as though she had fled from some great threat.

Was the Duke of Dawford a threat? Physically, Dorothy thought not. Despite his bad manners, he had unhanded her as soon as she had spoken. But she had still not come away from their meeting entirely untouched. His eyes, the leap of his pulse, and that faint stirring that might have been his breath on her skin, all stayed with her, almost as vividly as the moment she had lived them.

She took out the diary she had kept since she was a young girl, hidden carefully on the bookshelf behind the volumes of art and music books that attracted no great interest from others.

Sitting down at her small desk with a quill and inkpot, Dorothy thought to herself and then wrote today's date.

Today I met the strangest man. If his personality were as pleasing as his person, then he would be a happy man, indeed. Sadly for him, the two appear greatly at odds…

This was no exaggeration. Regardless of what impression the Duke of Dawford had made on her overall, Dorothy could not deny his handsome face or admirable physique.

Careful in her diary never to mention names or precise locations, Dorothy wrote nevertheless a short description of the painting that had precipitated her untoward introduction to the Duke. Then her mind turned to the future and the unwanted dinner that Patrick was organizing.

It is inevitable that we meet again. Given what I now know of his character and my own, I must prepare well for our next conversation. It will be by duty to ease the awkwardness of our first meeting as well as respect my family's wishes and think of my own future. This is not a man to cross without the utmost care for one's defenses.

Blotting the page, she closed the diary and replaced it on the shelf.

Patrick was pleased to find Dorothy in the library studying Debretts before dinner, the page open at the Duke of Dawford.

"I'm glad to see you taking our earlier conversation seriously, Dorothy." He smiled with satisfaction and patted the front of his waistcoat, which as usual was middle-aged in its cut and pattern. "I know that Father and I can rely on you to do the right thing."

Dorothy had actually picked up the book to learn the fate of the Duke of Dawford's parents, the loving couple in that painting. It saddened her to read of the former Duke's early death and his wife's "retirement from Society," by which the writer likely meant a mental breakdown. The present Duke's life sounded as though it had been hard and lonely—little wonder he was so ill-tempered…

After closing Debretts, Dorothy tried hard to put her encounter with the Duke out of her mind in front of her brother and father, still unsettled and fearing her thoughts might show on her face.

Regardless of Patrick's enthusiasm for the man, Dorothy managed to steer him away from the subject of the Duke of Dawford over dinner by encouraging him to tell her at length about various other eligible bachelors.

"Lord Helmsley? Yes, I did mention him to you last year, didn't I? Then, it was too soon after Lady Helmsley's death to be worth seriously pursuing, but now it is certainly worth considering. A widower of five-and-thirty but no children, and a large estate on the coast in Norfolk. Through his wife's death, he inherited shares in a diamond mining concern…"

"How fascinating, Brother. Do tell me more about his diamond mines," Dorothy had urged.

The tactic worked well, and she diverted Patrick further after dinner with questions about his own future nuptial plans. While presently entirely theoretical, all of his ideas seemed focused on fortunes and titles rather than actual women.

"Once you are well-married, Dorothy, my own prospects and opportunities will likely change according to your new station and your husband's connections," he droned on, leaning on the mantelpiece in the drawing room while their father dozed in his chair and Dorothy poured coffee. "If you marry a duke, for example, then?—"

"Is it true that Lady Lilian Carnforth stands to inherit from both sides of her family now that her father's cousin has died without issue?" Dorothy interrupted innocently. "I overheard two ladies in the park yesterday talking about her and speculating about her prospects."

"Ah, a double heiress. Yes, a most desirable prospect for an eligible bachelor seeking a good match, or for a lowdown fortune hunter seeking to rise in the ranks. Fortunately for Lady Lilian, her parents are most careful in guarding her acquaintance. If you marry an earl or a marquess, Dorothy, I may seek an introduction to Lady Lilian myself. But if you marry a duke…"

"If I marry a duke, then you may seek a woman of yet higher rank than Lady Lilian, regardless of her fortune," Dorothy had quickly finished for him. "What about the Dowager Duchess of Monterbrooke? Widowed at only three-and-twenty, cousin to a past Prime Minister and well-connected in the Royal Court. I expect she will want to marry again before long."

"A fine thought, Sister." Patrick nodded, accepting a cup of coffee from her hands. "A lady like the Dowager Duchess of Monterbrooke does indeed hold all the qualities I should value in a wife. But I could not yet aspire to such heights. A dowager countess, perhaps, and there are several presently on the marriage market…"

Successfully steering the conversation away from the one subject she did not wish to touch on, Dorothy was mentally exhausted by the time the clock struck ten, and she felt able to say goodnight without drawing any remark.

It was only as she sat in front of her looking glass that night and brushed out her long, heavy locks of chestnut-brown hair that she allowed herself to recall certain events of the afternoon in full once more and weigh them properly in the balance.

The way the Duke had looked at her in his drawing room made her shiver even in recollection, as did the remembered sensation of his hand on her shoulder and her hand briefly on his, bare skin on bare skin. For a few seconds, she had believed that he wanted to kiss her, and she had feared that she would even return his kiss.

But surely all they had done was insult and confuse one other! Why should he wish to kiss her, or she him? It made no sense at all, and Dorothy wished she could shrug it off and begin the acquaintance all over again. Patrick would doubtless sit them near to one another at the dinner he had planned.

Whether she liked it or not, the Duke of Dawford would look at her again with those deep blue eyes…

How on earth would she be able to make polite conversation with the man while so disturbed by the memories of their tense exchange and her body's strange response to his proximity?