Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

T he following day, the new gowns were delivered, along with a message— wear the blue one today .

Lavinia could tell immediately that the message had come from the duke. She unboxed the blue gown and put it on, wondering what her father would say when he saw her dressed in something so new and fashionable. After all, he had no idea of her interactions with the duke, particularly what had happened yesterday. He hadn’t even come to town with them, and nor had Edwina. This would come as a surprise to everyone.

But she needn’t have worried about it. Her father didn’t even look up as she came in and took her seat at the breakfast table. “You’re late,” was all he said. “I thought we had discussed the fact that you needed to come down to meals on time. And you only have nine days left.”

“I know, Father.” Lavinia eased into her seat and took a cup of coffee. She had no appetite for anything more than that. She had spent several long minutes gazing at herself in the looking glass before coming down—that was the reason for her tardiness—and she felt as if everyone must surely be staring at her in this new gown.

Even though Lavinia had always found it difficult to believe in her own beauty, she couldn’t deny that she was a vision in this gown. It was impossible, now, not to realize that the clothing she had been wearing in the past had done her far more harm than good, and that she had never before shown herself off to her best advantage.

She wasn’t the only one who had noticed. Though her father was oblivious, Edwina was openly staring at her from their father’s other side, but she waited until the meal had ended to say anything.

“My goodness,” she whispered, pulling Lavinia to one side as everyone filed out of the dining room. “What are you wearing, Lavinia? And wherever did you get it?”

“It was a gift,” Lavinia murmured.

“A gift from whom ?”

“You must promise not to tell anyone,” Lavinia said. “I don’t know whether or not I’m supposed to say.”

“You can’t mean that someone has been giving you gifts in secret, can you?” Edwina looked both awed and a bit elated. “Who would do such a thing?”

“It wasn’t really a gift,” Lavinia said. “It’s from the Duke of Loxburgh.”

Edwina gasped. “The duke! He must have taken a fancy to you!”

“No, he hasn’t at all. It’s nothing like that. Honestly, I think he finds me rather pathetic,” Lavinia said. “But he feels as if he owes me. I did him a service the other night. I think he’s making too much of it all, and I told him so, but if he can ease his conscience by buying me a few gowns, the least I can do is to allow it.”

“Yes, I quite agree!” Edwina said happily. “You look positively radiant! Oh, I wish I could get a duke to feel that he was in my debt and buy me such lovely things!”

Lavinia laughed. “I’m sure every gentleman at this party would beg you for the privilege,” she assured her sister. “In your case, it’s simply a matter of picking one.”

“Well, you look beautiful,” Edwina said. “And just think—now you can probably find someone you’d like to marry! Already I can see that more gentlemen than ever have their eyes on you—though of course, you’ll want to give the first consideration to this duke of yours.”

“Of course I don’t,” Lavinia said. “Haven’t you been listening, Edwina? He has no interest in me, and I’m hardly interested in forcing the matter with him. Besides, I’m not interested in him that way either.”

“Why not?” Edwina asked. “He sounds like a kind man, and besides, he’s a duke.”

“If having a good title was enough for me, I would marry whoever it is that Father has chosen for me and be done with the whole affair,” Lavinia said. “I’m sure he’s made a respectable selection, after all. But it’s not enough. I want to feel something for the person I marry, Edwina.”

“And do you mean to tell me that you feel nothing for the gentleman who has done all this for you? Nothing at all?”

Lavinia hesitated.

“You’re thinking about it,” Edwina said triumphantly. “That means you aren’t sure.”

“It doesn’t mean that,” Lavinia said. “It only means—there was a moment at the dressmaker’s shop yesterday. A strange moment.”

“What sort of strange moment?”

“He was talking about…well, he was talking about my neck, actually,” Lavinia said.

“Your neck ? That’s very odd.”

“I know. I thought so, too. And then he came up alongside me—like this—” She approached her sister to demonstrate. “He touched my neck here. Very gently.”

Edwina stepped back, frowning. “Oh,” she said. “I can see why you don’t like him, then. That’s very forward of him. He shouldn’t have done it.”

“No, you misunderstand me,” Lavinia said. “I didn’t dislike it at all. It was…I don’t know how to explain. I rather enjoyed it.”

“You enjoyed it? Him putting his hands on you like that?”

“Don’t think less of me,” Lavinia begged her sister.

“I don’t. You know I never could. But I am surprised, Lavinia. You’ve never seemed like someone who would welcome such an intimate touch from a near stranger. What made you do it?”

“You suggested that I might have feelings for him.” Lavinia blushed.

“Are you telling me that you do?”

“No,” Lavinia said firmly, even though she wasn’t completely sure she was telling the truth. “I don’t. But in that moment, it was easy to imagine how I could . That’s what I’m saying. I could picture what it would be like. That’s why I hesitated when you asked me whether or not I felt anything. The answer isn’t a simple no.”

“So then you do have feelings for him?”

“It only happened because of that strange situation, that strange moment. It doesn’t mean anything. It certainly doesn’t mean he’s someone I ought to consider marrying. This is only happening at all because he’s trying to repay a favor he feels he owes me.”

“That’s more than I’ve ever heard you describe feeling for any other man, though,” Edwina said. “I’ve never heard you mention caring for anyone else at all.”

“Even so, one afternoon is hardly enough to build a marriage upon. And even if it was, there’s still the fact that he doesn’t care about me at all.”

“I don’t know how you can say that when he bought you a new gown.”

“Several gowns, actually,” Lavinia admitted.

“ Several ?” Her sister shook her head. “Of course he cares, Lavinia. This is what gentlemen do when they care. They shower treats upon you. They pay more attention to you than to any other lady. The duke seems to be making it clear that he thinks more of you than he does of anyone else at this party, Lavinia. Why don’t you see that?”

“He only thinks of me because he doesn’t want to feel in my debt. As soon as the debt is repaid to his satisfaction, he will want nothing more to do with me.

It would be a terrible mistake on my part to allow myself to believe there’s anything more than that between the two of us or to become dependent on him in any way, for anything. I have to be prepared for the day he will lose interest in me and move on to whatever is next for him. This is temporary.”

“It sounds to me as if you’d like it to be something more, though,” Edwina said. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be saying these things about how you couldn’t allow that to happen.”

Lavinia pulled herself together. “Whatever you think you see in me here, you have it wrong,” she told her sister. “I don’t want anything to happen between the duke and myself. He’s an insufferable man—it’s just that he happens to be showing me kindness at the moment.

That doesn’t change the fact that he’s arrogant and makes thoughtless assumptions about people’s motives without getting to know them. He accused me of trying to trap him into a marriage—as if I’d ever do such a thing.”

Edwina gasped. “He thought you were trying to do that? Then why would he bother to be so kind to you now?”

“He quickly accepted that he had been wrong about my intentions,” Lavinia said. “But the fact that he would make such an assumption in the first place is very difficult for me to look past. And any gentleman who would do something like that, who would look at me and see such machinations as something I could be capable of—well, I can’t admit the possibility that he might care about me at all.”

“Well, perhaps you’re right,” Edwina allowed. “Perhaps I’ve been too generous in my estimation of the man—given him too much credit. Still, I must admit that I’m glad to see a gentleman paying you the attention you deserve, Lavinia—even if you think there is something insincere about it all. I hope you find a way to enjoy it while it lasts.”

Lavinia was about to respond when she was interrupted. “Lady Lavinia?”

She saw her sister’s eyes widen and turned. It was the Duke of Loxburgh.

“Good morning, Your Grace,” she said.

“I see you wore the blue gown as I instructed you to.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” she said. “And I thank you for the gift.”

“One more thing,” he said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, thin box. Opening it, he revealed a pair of ivory- covered gloves with flowers stitched on them—green stems and blue blossoms. “These will complete your appearance,” he said.

Edwina stared at them. “They’re beautiful, Your Grace,” she said. “This is so generous of you.”

Lavinia recognized her mistake. “Forgive me,” she said. “Your Grace, this is my sister, Lady Edwina. Edwina, the Duke of Loxburgh.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Lady Edwina,” the duke said.

“The pleasure is mine, Your Grace. I must say, this is a lovely gown, and you’re quite right about the gloves—they will make my sister look all the more beautiful.”

“Well, she never needed my help to be beautiful,” the duke said. “But perhaps these gifts will aid some of the less observant members of the ton in noticing it.” He removed the gloves from the box, draped one of them over his own wrist, and held the other one out to Lavinia. “May I?”

She hesitated, then put out her hand, allowing him to slip it on.

He took her gloved hand in hers and turned it over, briefly running his thumb over the soft fabric. “Good,” he said quietly. “It fits well. I hoped it would.”

“It fits perfectly,” she assured him, looking up into his dark eyes, captivated by the moment. He still hadn’t let go of her hand.

Edwina cleared her throat. “We should probably go, Lavinia,” she said quietly. “Father will be looking for us.”

The reminder of their father was enough to make Lavinia realize that her sister was right. They needed to move on. It wouldn’t be good if their father discovered them here, if he saw her hand in hand with the duke like this.

She wondered briefly how her father might respond. Would he try to intervene, to come between her and the duke on the grounds that there was no real future for them? Perhaps he would believe that Lavinia was wasting her time in speaking to a gentleman she wasn’t going to marry.

Or maybe he would have a different response. Maybe he would like the idea of Lavinia with a duke and would try to push them together. Maybe he wouldn’t accept the fact that there was nothing romantic between them and would try to force it upon her.

Either way, Lavinia thought, it would be awful. She couldn’t lose control of her relationship with the duke like that. It would have to be kept secret from her father.