Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

L ord Kentrow appeared at Lady Edwina’s home two days after the garden party. He arrived shortly after breakfast and joined her in the sitting room for tea.

“It’s lovely to see you again, Lady Edwina,” he said. His smile was so big and bright that Edwina couldn’t doubt his sincerity. She found herself returning the smile. He was a pleasant person to be around, even though Edwina knew that he wanted their relationship to be more than it was. Even though she knew her brother was pushing for that as well. She wished she could simply enjoy his company without any of that sort of pressure, but since she couldn’t do that, she thought she might as well make the most of their time together anyway. Perhaps they would be friends when this was all over.

“Did you enjoy the garden party?” she asked him.

“Very much,” he said. “I don’t know when I’ve had such a good time. You looked lovely, by the way. I’m not sure whether or not I mentioned that.”

He had mentioned it. In fact, he had said it several times. But she appreciated the thoughtfulness. “Thank you,” she said. “It means a lot to me that you think so.”

Lord Kentrow beamed, and Edwina wondered whether perhaps she shouldn’t have said anything about it. Perhaps she was leading him on—giving him false hope. That wasn’t what she wanted to do, and if it was happening, she knew she needed to take responsibility for it.

Oh, this was fraught. How could it possibly be so difficult to keep gentlemen at bay? Hadn’t she been clear when she had embraced the nickname of unattainable spinster? What excuse did anyone have to think she was available for them to try to woo?

But she couldn’t be angry at Lord Kentrow. He was just such a friendly person. Edwina knew that he wasn’t trying to do her any harm. At some point, she was going to have to figure out how to tell him that there couldn’t be anything serious between the two of them. But for now, they might as well have a good time.

That was what was on her mind when a footman opened the door to the sitting room. “Begging your pardon, Lady Edwina,” he said. “You have a guest.”

Edwina frowned, confused. “I know I do,” she replied. He was sitting right in front of her, after all.

“I apologize,” the footman said. “I was unclear. You have another guest.”

“Another guest?” Edwina felt an unpleasant sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach, a certainty that this could mean nothing good.

The door opened farther, and Edwina’s fears were confirmed as the Duke of Harbeck appeared in the doorway.

He looked from her to Lord Kentrow, a frown on his face, and Edwina could only imagine what he was thinking as he processed the sight of the two of them together.

Lord Kentrow jumped to his feet. “Forgive me, Your Grace,” he said. “I hadn’t realized that one of your five dates with Lady Edwina was to be today.”

“We hadn’t planned anything,” the Duke replied. “I thought I would call on her.”

“I’ll take my leave,” Lord Kentrow said. “We were finished talking anyway.”

They hadn’t been—Lord Kentrow had only just arrived—but Edwina didn’t know what else to do but to let him go. She couldn’t force herself to try to side with one of the gentlemen over the other.

And besides, if she was being honest, she did want to spend this time with the Duke and not with Lord Kentrow. She felt bad about the fact that she was sending Lord Kentrow on his way so soon after he’d arrived, but it would have felt equally bad to turn the Duke away when he had come all this way—and what was more, she knew she had been discourteous to him at the garden party. She ought to try to make up for what had happened there.

Lord Kentrow gave her one more smile. “We’ll see one another again soon, I’m sure,” he said. “Thank you for the pleasure of your company today.”

“Good day to you, Lord Kentrow.”

The Duke didn’t speak until he was gone. Then he turned to Edwina.

“Lord Kentrow?” he asked.

“A friend of my brother’s,” Edwina said. “I don’t know whether you know him or not.”

“I know who he is, yes.”

“That’s why he came over today. He came to visit with Matthew.”

The Duke inclined his head. “Would you like to come for a walk with me? Perhaps to the city gardens?”

“I’d enjoy that.” She really would enjoy it, she thought. The gardens were lovely, and she knew she owed him an apology for what had happened at the garden party.

She found a maid to accompany them on their walk, and they set off, heading for the city gardens. They traveled some way before either of them said anything, and it was the Duke who broke the silence.

“So,” he said, “I didn’t see Matthew at your house.”

“What?”

“You said that Lord Kentrow had come to see Matthew. But I didn’t see him there.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Why wasn’t he there?”

“Well, he was there,” she replied. “He’s at home.”

“I see. So, he had just stepped out of the room and left you with his friend—is that it?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“I’m just trying to make sense of it,” the Duke said. “You say that he was there to see Matthew, but from my perspective, he was there to see you.”

“And would that be a problem if he had come to see me?”

“It would be a surprise. I’m not going to say that it would be a problem, no.”

“All right,” Edwina said, wondering what he was getting at. “I’m sorry you were surprised.”

They walked in silence for a bit longer. They reached the gardens and began to walk through, heading toward the hedge maze at the center. Edwina enjoyed the maze. She had liked it ever since she was a child and had often come here with Matthew and Lavinia. She had many fond memories of playing around the maze, though she hadn’t done so in years.

They paused at the entrance. “Shall we go in?” the Duke asked her.”

“I would like that, Your Grace.”

He started in, walking right past her, not even looking at her.

She frowned and hurried after him. “Your Grace—is something the matter? You seem upset about something.”

“I’m not upset,” he said. “I’m trying to figure out what’s going on between yourself and Lord Kentrow, that’s all.”

“There’s nothing going on between us.” This was what had him acting so strangely? “He came over to see Matthew, that’s all.”

“And yet I find him alone in a room with you.”

“Not alone. Molly was in there with us.”

“Oh, very well—but it looked to me as if he had come to see you, not to see Matthew.”

“And you said that wasn’t a problem. Why are we still discussing it?”

He glanced at her. “I saw you with him at the garden party,” he said. “After you were so upset with me and decided that you didn’t want us to spend the day together, you went to be with him. And now, I come to see you at your home, and I find you with him again. It’s of interest to me, that’s all. Is there something between the two of you?”

“No, there isn’t,” she replied. “I told you this already.”

“You never told me any such thing.”

“I told you that I didn’t want to marry,” she said, frustrated. “I’ve told everyone that. And now, you see me with a gentleman and want to know if something is going on between the two of us, but how could there be? Do you suspect that I’ve been lying about my desire to remain unmarried? That I’m secretly courting Lord Kentrow?”

“I notice that you’re angry every time I see you these days,” the Duke noted. “Something is bothering you.”

“We spoke about this at the garden party.”

“Not really. I asked you what was the matter, and you responded with a question. You asked me about the reason I’d placed a bid on you in the first place. And I answered. I thought things might be resolved between the two of us after you received the answer you were looking for—and perhaps after you and I had some time away from one another—but it doesn’t seem so. It seems as though you have turned your attention to another gentleman.”

“You never had my attention,” she observed.

It wasn’t the truth. He had so much more of her attention than she would have admitted to him. She thought about him every day. She woke up with an excited curiosity in her heart, wondering whether she would see him, and the last thing she thought about before she fell asleep each night was the fluttering feeling in the pit of her stomach when he looked her in the eye.

She couldn’t tell him any of that, but perhaps, he knew it anyway because the look he gave her was full of skepticism. “I know that I’ve had your attention,” he told her. “Something changed between us the day of the garden party, and I don’t know what it is. Before that, we spent time together, and we enjoyed it. You can’t fool me into thinking that it meant nothing at all to you.”

“You think you started to charm me. Even though I’ve told you a dozen times that you haven’t, and you won’t.”

“Nobody thinks they’re going to be charmed until it happens,” he said, giving her that look that made her weak at the knees.

Edwina looked away. She wished she had stayed with Lord Kentrow, who had no power to make her feel like this. Being with Lord Kentrow wasn’t exciting, but it did feel safe.

But at the same time…her time with the Duke was the most exciting she had ever had.

And if he found that out, she didn’t know what she would do.

“I’ve spent time with you because I wished to honor the agreement you made with my sister, nothing more. I’ve said this all along. You believe you can charm me, win me over to feeling something for you, but I’ve told you that it can’t be done.”

“You didn’t tell me that you would disrespect me by spending time with someone else before our dates were at an end.”

“That wasn’t my intention,” Edwina said, “but there’s no reason I shouldn’t socialize with my brother’s friend, and if you?—”

She paused, turning around.

Molly was gone. They were alone. They had lost her somehow.

And as she turned a slow circle, she realized that she was deeper in the maze than she had ever been before, and she didn’t recognize where she was.

They were lost in the depths of the hedge maze.

The hedges towered high over their heads, and Edwina felt a shudder of something that might have been alarm or anticipation as she fully processed the fact that she was stuck alone with the Duke and had no idea how to get herself out of this predicament.