Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

“ Y ou arranged for everyone to go into town?” Lavinia repeated, staggered. “How did you manage that?”

“Well, the Duke of Harbeck is a very good friend of mine,” the Duke of Loxburgh explained. “I simply told him I thought it might be a fine idea for everyone to have an outing—to enjoy the fresh air.”

“An outing to enjoy the fresh air,” Lavinia repeated. “When really your intention in the whole thing was to bring me shopping for gowns?”

“Well, it does create an opportunity,” the duke said. He gestured to a fashionable shop. “Let’s step in here.”

“I haven’t any money for this, though,” Lavinia said. “And my father—I don’t know that he’ll be willing to give us a lot of money for new gowns for me. His stance will be that I already have plenty of fine things to wear. And, after all, he has a plan to marry me to someone that doesn’t depend on anything new. He won’t see the need.”

“Well, I wasn’t intending to ask him for his thoughts on the subject,” the duke said. “I’ll pay for these things.”

“You’ll pay?” Lavinia frowned. “Why would you do that? I mean…it’s very generous of you, Your Grace, but you don’t have to do it, and I can’t understand why you would.”

“I owe you,” he said simply.

“You don’t owe me anything. I did you a kindness, but it’s not as if I saved your life.”

“In a very real way, it is like that,” the duke said. He looked at her. “I realize I didn’t show my gratitude to you the night you saved me from Lady Genevieve, so let me express it now. She stopped me on the path hoping to do the very thing I feared you hoped to do with me—something I now understand you had no intention of doing, of course. Her plan was to create a scandal between the two of us so that I would have no choice but to marry her.

I heard what you said about wishing to marry for love, Lady Lavinia. Personally, I don’t know if I believe such a thing is possible. I don’t know if I think marriages based on love are real. People tell me they are, but if it’s true, I think they must be so rare that they’re almost impossible to achieve.

I decided, long ago, that I would simply never marry. To be trapped into a marriage by Lady Genevieve would be a terrible fate. You saved me from that.”

“But you wouldn’t have had to marry her,” Lavinia pointed out. “It would be her reputation that was destroyed by the choice she made, not yours.”

“You’re right,” the duke said, “but I couldn’t have brought myself to do that. If it had come down to it—if it was a question of her reputation being ruined—I think I would have had to marry her. I couldn’t have walked away from something like that.”

“Even though it would have been her fault? Even though she would have done it to herself?”

“I suppose you find that pathetic.”

“I find it merciful,” she said quietly. “It’s hard to believe that a gentleman would do such a thing against his own best interests. I don’t know that I’ve ever met anyone like you before, Your Grace.”

“Sometimes the only thing a person can control in their life is who they are,” the duke said. “I may not have as much choice as I would like in the way my future looks, but I can choose to make good and respectful decisions, and to help other people where I can.”

Lavinia was quiet. From the way he had ordered her around and hadn’t hesitated to criticize everything about her, from her clothing to her personality, she had allowed herself to think of him as arrogant and self-important. She still thought those traits applied to him—though she was going along with his advice, it irked her that he was so condescending about the way he gave it out.

That didn’t mean he didn’t have good qualities, though. It was nice to see one of them.

He cleared his throat. “Let’s get you some gowns,” he said. “That’s what we came here for.”

She nodded. “I don’t know what to choose,” she admitted. “I don’t know much about fashion.”

“Let me look at you,” he said. “If you’ll do that, I’ll be able to determine what your best features are, and I’ll know what we should try to show off.”

“I thought we were trying to show off my eyes,” she said.

“To begin with, yes, but if we’re buying something new, we can do better than to showcase just one thing about you,” he said. “You have lovely eyes, but I’m sure you have other attributes as well.”

Lavinia’s heart sank slightly. If this was something he was counting on, he was going to be disappointed. “I don’t have other attributes,” she said. “Not really. I’ve always been plain, and I don’t think there are any clothes you can put me in that will help with that.”

“Well, let me judge for myself,” the duke suggested. “Turn around so I can get a good look at you from all angles, please.”

Feeling a little shy, Lavinia turned.

It felt strange, almost intimate, to know that he was looking at her—that he was assessing her body the way he was. She longed to know what he was thinking—but at the same time, she had a feeling she might not like it if she did know. It might be too embarrassing. It was probably better to remain in the dark.

Still, there was a part of her that couldn’t help enjoying what was happening. Lavinia had never felt beautiful in the eyes of a gentleman before. She didn’t exactly feel that way now, but she did feel as if he was looking for things to admire.

A part of her feared that when he spoke again, he would say that he hadn’t found anything; that it was hopeless. But a part of her did feel hope. He had thought her eyes were lovely, and Lavinia would never have believed such a thing about herself. What if he was able to find some other attribute worthy of admiration? What if it turned out she wasn’t as plain as she had always believed herself to be? Did she dare to hope for it?

“This is easy,” the duke said at length. “Easier than I thought it would be.”

“Easy?” she repeated, sure she must have misunderstood. He couldn’t possibly mean that it would be easy to make her look beautiful, could he?

“First of all,” he said, looking toward the modiste, “I don’t think we need to confine ourselves to the color green, do we? I’d welcome your opinion, but I think she’ll look lovely in any rich color, as well as any shade of blue.”

“Quite so,” the modiste agreed.

“We’re looking for some gowns that we can take with us today, not to have anything made for her,” the duke said. “Have you anything like that? And I’d like something that will show off her neck. I think that’s her best feature.”

Lavinia’s hands came up to touch her neck. It was something she had never noticed about herself, and now the duke had called attention to it. She found herself wishing she had a looking glass to examine herself in and another lady to compare herself to. What was it about her neck that was remarkable to him?

Perhaps he understood the question she was asking herself, for he continued, though he hadn’t been asked. “You have a very long neck, Lady Lavinia,” he said. “Long and slender. It makes you look elegant and graceful. I would say there are many ladies who would love such a feature.

Now, the gown you’re currently wearing is doing you no favors at all. The neck coming up so high, above your collarbone, above your shoulders—it makes your long neck look shorter by half.”

And to Lavinia’s shock, he crossed the room to her side and placed a hand along the side of her neck as if to measure it with his fingers.

His touch seemed to light a fire beneath her skin. She looked up at him, hardly able to find words. What was happening here?

It was beginning to feel as if the duke must have a more complex reason than those he had already revealed for wishing to help her—but Lavinia had no idea what that reason could be. It was odd enough that he had taken any interest in her at all. It couldn’t possibly be true that his interest was motivated by anything personal. No, she had to accept his help at face value. He simply wanted to make sure that the debt he felt he owed her was settled. That was all it could be.

The duke seemed to realize what he was doing. He cleared his throat and stepped away, letting his hand fall to his side. “Shall we say three new gowns?” he asked the modiste. “Do you think you have three that would fit her and match our specifications?”

“Oh, yes, it should be easy enough,” the modiste said. “She looks easy to fit. No unusual physical features that would make things more difficult.”

“I’ll go and pick out some gloves for you while you do this,” the duke said to Lavinia. “Be sure to choose gowns you like.”

“I get to choose?”

“Of course. You’re the one who will be wearing them. Did you think I was going to insist on making the choice myself?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Lavinia admitted. “You’re the one who will be paying. I wouldn’t have thought it inappropriate of you if you had insisted on such a thing.”

“Well, I don’t,” he said. “I want you to select gowns you feel good in. Remember what we discussed—the most important thing, if you want to draw a gentleman’s eye, is that you have confidence . And you won’t have that unless you feel lovely.”

It was an idea that made too much sense to ignore. Lavinia knew that she had never felt lovely before in her life. Not really. She had always, in her mind, compared herself with her sister. She had always known that she was the less lovely of the two of them. And she had always been conscious of the fact that it was very likely that any gentleman she met would be thinking just the same thing.

Now she wondered. Was it possible that those thoughts had lived only in her own mind? Had it always been possible for her to be seen as beautiful, the way Edwina was?

Perhaps the most important difference between the two of them wasn’t the color of their eyes or the curl in Edwina’s hair, but simply the fact that Edwina had always been told she was beautiful and had come to believe it. Perhaps if Lavinia gave her attention to believing such things about herself, they would come to seem true enough that she would be able to take them seriously, and it would change the way she was perceived by society.

And then, maybe…

Oh, she could hardly allow herself to believe it. It was frightening to let herself believe it. But what if it was true?

What if it was possible that she could fall in love sometime in the next ten days? What if she could find herself a marriage that was based on that love? What if she could still have the bright, beautiful future she’d always dreamed of, instead of marrying someone her father had selected for her? A future in which she belonged to a gentleman who truly loved her, someone she truly loved…

That was too much to hope for.

And yet, it was too tempting to let go of the idea. Even knowing that she was risking her own heartbreak, she couldn’t abandon the thought that, just maybe, it could happen.