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Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

L avinia rose to her feet. “Your Grace,” she said, “may I have a word?”

The tension in her voice was so apparent that she was frankly surprised conversations hadn’t stopped all around the dinner table. It seemed as if surely people must notice how upset she was—surely there would be interest in what was going on here. She knew how much the ton loved gossip, and it seemed impossible that this moment wouldn’t provoke some sort of gossip.

But perhaps she was more under control than she believed herself to be, for the only person who reacted at all was the duke. He frowned up at her. “I’m not sure this is an appropriate time,” he said.

She knew what he meant—they had agreed to keep the interactions between the two of them clandestine—but he had crossed a line tonight. “You’re going to lecture me about what’s appropriate right now?” she asked him. “Really? Do you think I’m going to hear that from you right now?”

He sighed. “You don’t want to cause a scene.”

“Don’t tell me what I want,” she said. “I apologized to you for what happened between us earlier, and I don’t regret it, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to accept whatever disrespectful treatment you dish out. I’m going out into the garden, and I’d like you to come with me so that you and I can speak to one another there.”

She turned and walked away, counting on the fact that he would follow after her, hoping that she wasn’t wrong. It would be a bit of a disaster if she made it out to the garden only to discover that he hadn’t found her worth following—if she was forced to stand out there on her own, waiting for someone who would never come after her. How could she cope with that?

She wasn’t sure.

Fortunately, she didn’t have to find out. Almost as soon as she reached the garden and turned around, she saw that he was behind her. She faded into the shadows. There were other people on the garden path, so they wouldn’t exactly be alone—there was no way this would end in any kind of scandal, and that was important. She didn’t want him to face those sorts of consequences for the way he’d behaved at the table.

At the same time, she couldn’t simply let it go. What could he have been thinking? He was supposed to be helping her find a match, not scaring away gentlemen who spoke to her.

“What was that about?” she asked him quietly when he’d reached her. “You were very hostile to Lord Routhecamp. Why?”

“Lord Routhecamp is a cad,” the duke said. “I’ve heard about the way he treats ladies. And you heard it too, didn’t you? You heard the way he responded to the questions I asked him. He confessed to engaging in flirtations with no intention of taking them seriously.”

“And what if he did?” Lavinia asked. “Does that give you the right to scare off one of the only gentlemen who seems willing to speak to me?”

“Lady Lavinia, for heaven’s sake—you can do better than him . What has someone like him ever done to make himself worthy of your attention?”

“I don’t know,” Lavinia said. “It’s not as if I have much time. There are plenty of gentlemen who have already decided they don’t care for me. I agree he seems as if he has a checkered past, but does that mean he can’t be redeemed? Perhaps he isn’t who I would have chosen if I could have had any gentleman I liked, but I know as well as anybody that that isn’t the way things are. I can’t afford to refuse to give anyone a chance.

“If there’s even a possibility that I might experience feelings of love for someone, I have to try to allow them to grow. And I certainly can’t afford to gain a reputation as someone who is turning gentlemen away. If people see me that way, others will hesitate to approach me—and what then? It will be impossible for me to find a match.”

“You’re not giving yourself enough credit here,” the duke said. “And you’re not giving me enough credit either. I wouldn’t have sent him off the way I did if I thought he was your only chance. He isn’t. You have enough charm about you to engage the interest of as many gentlemen as you’d like. All you need is to learn how to do it.”

“I can’t do that,” Lavinia protested. “I don’t know how to charm anyone. You know that as well as I do. Every time I try to be charming, I end up pushing people away from me.”

“But it doesn’t have to be that way,” the duke told her. “You have done things that are charming. I’ve seen them. I think it comes to you when you aren’t trying, which complicates the matter, but you’re capable of it.”

“When have I ever been charming?” Lavinia asked.

“When you pulled me off the garden path so that Lady Genevieve wouldn’t see me?—”

“You didn’t find that charming,” Lavinia protested. “You didn’t like that I had done that.”

He held up a hand. “Allow me to finish, please,” he said. “It wasn’t the act of pulling me off the path that was charming. It was the way you didn’t try to win my approval. When I objected to what you’d done, you told me to leave if I didn’t like it. There was something unusual about that boldness. It was a moment I have never been able to forget.”

She regarded him. Were they still talking about Lord Routhecamp? Suddenly, it seemed as if perhaps they weren’t. “You’re saying you found me charming?”

“This isn’t about me,” he said gruffly, looking away quickly. “This is about your ability to be bold in social settings. That’s what you can do that will charm gentlemen in ways they won’t forget. That’s the skill you have that will allow you to win them over.”

“But if that’s never worked in the past, what’s to make me believe it will work now?” Lavinia asked him. “I can accept that it’s something you took a liking to about me, of course, but why should anybody else find it to be a good quality just because you did?”

“Some people will admire your boldness and some won’t,” the duke said. “But you’re looking for a genuine love match, are you not?”

“You know I am.”

“Then what you need to remember is that the right person will like the qualities you naturally possess,” the duke said. “The right person won’t require you to pretend to be something you’re not. You don’t need to learn how to do that. You don’t need to learn to be someone who can tolerate behavior like Lord Routhecamp’s.

What you need to do is learn how to best show off the person you are. That’s what gentlemen need to see if they are going to appreciate your potential and truly come to care for you in the way you’re hoping they will.”

Lavinia nodded. As strange as it sounded, it did make sense to her. “How can I do that, though?” she asked. “How can I showcase the qualities I possess naturally in such a way as to win people over? I’ve never been able to do it before. This is the problem I’ve always faced, and now I’m forced to try to resolve it within a matter of days. I don’t see how I’m going to do that.”

“Well, we are planning on meeting one another tonight, are we not?”

“Yes,” she said. “I still intend to be there.”

“Good. Then that is what we’ll focus on—learning how to show off the best things about you so that you can draw the attention of a good gentleman, and not a cad like Lord Routhecamp. Someone you choose for yourself.”

“Is he really so bad?”

“Didn’t you hear the things he was saying?” the duke asked. “He spoke of how he didn’t care what happened to the ladies he spends his time with. He said outright that there was a difference between having fun with someone and finding someone he deems good enough to marry. That’s a bit of a shocking opinion, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know,” Lavinia said. “I can imagine enjoying spending time with someone I knew I wasn’t going to marry.”

She fixed her gaze on the duke, wondering whether he would understand the point she was making.

If he did, he made no comment. But he lingered for a moment, looking at her as if she was a puzzle he was struggling to solve.

Then he swallowed. “I think perhaps I’d better go inside,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense for us to linger here.”

“I tried to choose a place where we would be able to meet safely,” she said.

“And I think you did well,” he assured her. “Even so, we shouldn’t take any chances. Someone might come along at any time.”

Lavinia nodded, knowing that he was right. He had done more than enough by coming out here to meet her in the first place—there had been nothing compelling him to do that. “All right,” she agreed. “This evening, then.”

“And don’t be late,” he reminded her.

Lavinia sighed. “I was only five minutes late.”

“There’s no reason for you to be one minute late. Leave your room earlier this time and we’ll avoid that problem.”

“Are you ever going to stop bossing me around?”

“If you ever stop needing it, I will,” he said. “Don’t forget the reason we’re doing this—it’s because you’re not ready to face the difficulties of charming a gentleman without help. You might not enjoy my instructions very much, but you do need them. Unless you want to storm away from me again?”

Lavinia shook her head. She didn’t want that. She would just have to try to find a way to put up with how domineering he could be.

And after all, she wouldn’t be putting up with it for long. Only for the next few days—for the remainder of this party. Once the party reached an end, whether Lavinia had found love or not, her time of studying under the duke would be at an end, and she would never have any occasion to listen to his thoughts or his advice again.

It wouldn’t matter how harshly he liked to speak to her when that day came, because his days of speaking to her would be at an end. Given how frustrating she found him, that should have been a comforting thought—at least this would all be over soon—but it wasn’t comforting at all. Instead, she found herself feeling prematurely sad at the idea of saying goodbye to him. Even though he annoyed her, it was a sort of annoyance that she thought she might miss when it was gone. That was a funny idea, but she couldn’t pretend it wasn’t true, even if she had no idea how to account for the way she was feeling.

It could only be due to the fact that no one had ever treated her with dignity before now. No one had ever looked at her as someone with potential. And although it was difficult to accept the way he ordered her around, she still felt grateful for the fact that he saw anything in her at all. It still felt like more than she would have dared to hope for.

She would be on time for their meeting tonight. At the end of the day, it wasn’t such an unreasonable thing to request. It was more polite not to keep him waiting, and she didn’t want to seem ungrateful.

And though it was difficult to admit it, she knew that it might even be necessary to concede that he had been right to come between her and Lord Routhecamp.

He thinks I can do better . That was what he had said.

Lavinia wasn’t sure he was right about that, but she was sure of one thing—it was incredibly flattering that he thought so. And she believed that he meant what he’d said. As frustrating as he was, she didn’t think he had lied to her once, and that was what made her want to go on trusting him with this project.

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