Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

“ A letter has arrived,” Edwina’s father said over breakfast. “The Duke of Harbeck will be paying you a visit today, Edwina. He wants to claim his second date.”

“What does he have in mind?” Edwina asked warily.

“He’ll be taking you on a promenade into town. Matthew will accompany you as a chaperone.”

“Very well,” Matthew agreed.

Lord Feverton turned to Edwina. “I think you should go upstairs and get ready,” he said. “Wear something nice.”

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

“Nothing’s wrong with it, but that is a very everyday gown. I think you can find something more suitable for such an important occasion. You want to make a good impression on the Duke after all. You want to show yourself off to your best advantage.”

Edwina wanted nothing of the kind but knew nothing would be gained by sitting here and arguing with her father. She rose to her feet.

“You could finish eating first,” Matthew suggested. “We should let her finish eating, Father. She’ll need her energy today.”

“I was done anyway,” Edwina replied.

“She’s always had a birdlike appetite,” her father observed fondly.

Edwina felt herself scowl slightly as she turned away. She had never liked her father remarking on her appetite. It was true that it was often small, but that wasn’t in an attempt to be ladylike, something he often suggested. When she didn’t eat a big meal, it was because she wasn’t very hungry, not because she was trying to look delicate.

But she wasn’t going to let her father’s comments compel her to eat more than she wanted just to prove a point, either. What the Duke had said to her at Pinery echoed in her mind—he had wondered whether she might be resisting marriage just to be obstinate. She knew that wasn’t true—she was sure that wasn’t true. But the thought of it was making her examine all of her actions more carefully than she otherwise might have, wondering whether there was anything to the idea that she allowed her stubbornness to guide her choices.

It was maddening. And now, she was going to have to spend the day with him again, and no doubt, he would have something else unpleasant to say that would ring in her ears.

Well, this time, things would be different. This time she would find a way to irritate him just as much as he irritated her. If that was successful, perhaps he would give up on this whole enterprise. This game he wanted to play, this game of seeing whether he could woo her—perhaps she could force him to forfeit and in doing so, win by default.

It was a fine idea, if nothing else, and as she changed into one of her finer gowns, she found herself smiling at the prospect. It was a surprise to smile today, but the surprise was a welcome one. Maybe this meeting wouldn’t be so dreadful after all. At the very least, there was reason for hope.

She went back downstairs to find that the Duke had arrived in the time she’d been up in her room. Her father shot her a slight frown as she entered the foyer. “Edwina, the Duke has been waiting,” he said.

“I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting, Your Grace,” Edwina said, although she wasn’t especially sorry.

“It’s quite all right,” the Duke assured her.

Edwina frowned. There was something different about him today, something that had changed from the man she was used to. Ordinarily, he might have made a cheeky comment about how a lady like her was worth waiting for. He might have winked at her, tried to take her arm, or even tried to kiss her hand. But today, instead of that, he looked preoccupied. He looked as if he was miles away.

Matthew cleared his throat. “Shall we go?” he asked. “We should attempt to be back here in time for lunch. Then we can all eat together before you leave.”

“That sounds lovely,” the Duke agreed. “Let’s be off, then.”

They left the house and began the walk toward town. The weather was fine, and birds were singing—it was a beautiful day. But even so, Edwina couldn’t bring herself to enjoy it.

At first, she tried to tell herself that the way she was feeling had to do with the fact that she was stuck on a promenade with a man she didn’t want to be with. She had no interest in these dates—or so she tried to repeat to herself over and over as they walked along. She wanted nothing more than to go back home and perhaps curl up with a good book.

But as the journey progressed, she found herself realizing that that wasn’t the problem at all.

She didn’t want to go home. She did want to be here with him. It was just that she wanted to be here with a different version of him—the version she had been at the ball with. She wanted him to tease her and plague her. It had felt like a contest to see which of them could break the other, and she’d wanted to win that contest.

And today, it felt as though he had simply decided he wasn’t going to play anymore.

She wondered why. Had she done something wrong? Something to make him lose interest?

She was shocked by how much the idea alarmed her, and she had to forcibly remind herself that she didn’t want him to feel any interest in her. She wanted him to go his own way and leave her be.

So why should it be so distressing to her that he seemed to be doing exactly that?

She glanced over her shoulder. Matthew was walking a respectable distance behind them—far enough away that he wouldn’t hear what they said to one another, though not so far that he couldn’t keep an eye on them.

She turned back to the Duke. “Forgive me, Your Grace,” she said. “Is everything all right?”

He glanced at her. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t seem quite yourself, that’s all,” she observed. “You look as though you have something on your mind.”

He was quiet for a moment, and she thought he might have decided to ignore the question. Perhaps he felt she had been too forward. She wondered whether she ought to be angry with him for refusing to answer—after all, what was the point of spending a day together if he wasn’t going to engage her in conversation?

But then he did answer. He looked up at her. “Forgive me,” he said. “I hadn’t realized you knew me well enough to notice something like that about me.”

“I think I know you better than either of us may have realized,” she observed slowly, surprised to find herself admitting it.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you would want to know me well.”

“Well, I didn’t want to. But I’ve spent enough time with you that you have become familiar to me,” she commented. “You’re quieter than you ordinarily would be today, Your Grace. I can tell that something is on your mind.”

“It isn’t anything much,” he said. “Something my grandmother said to me.”

“Do you want to discuss it?”

“With you?”

“Only if you want to.”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, looking rather surprised. “I didn’t think you would ask me a question like that.”

“I didn’t think I would either, but…if you’d like to tell me, I think I would like to know,” she offered.

He smiled faintly. “Does this mean I’ve succeeded in making you care about me?”

“Don’t spoil it,” she said. “There’s a difference between caring that you’re unhappy and being charmed by you, and a gentleman as clever as you are ought to know that.”

“So, you think I’m clever?”

Edwina groaned. “I see you’re not so unhappy that you’re unable to torment me.”

“Tormenting you cheers me up,” he said with a smile.

“Well, I’m always happy to oblige you in that regard.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t become you.”

“I wasn’t trying to be becoming.”

“Of course, you weren’t. You never are, are you?”

“Not usually, no.”

They walked in silence for a moment.

“So?” Edwina prompted.

“So what?”

“Your grandmother. What did she say?”

“Oh. It wasn’t anything much. She implied that my father might be unhappy with some of my choices if he were alive.”

“That’s awful!”

He looked at her, obviously surprised by her strong response. “Do you think so?”

“Of course, I think so,” she said firmly. ‘To make you doubt the way your father would feel about the choices you’re making when you can never ask him for yourself is a very hurtful thing to do.”

“Grandmother has very firm ideas about the way things ought to be done,” the Duke explained. “I think she has trouble coping with her own lack of influence over the dukedom’s affairs. There are many things she would do differently from the way I’m doing them, and she has no opportunity to enforce that.”

“Well, I’m sorry that happened,” Edwina said, and she was surprised to find she meant it very earnestly. Whatever she thought of the Duke, she didn’t think he deserved to be spoken to like that or made to doubt the way his father would feel about him. No one should face such a thing.

It made her think about her mother whom she had never known. Lavinia and Matthew, who both had memories of their mother, had often told Edwina tales of what she had been like, and they always went out of their way to reassure her how much their mother would have loved her and how proud she would have been. Even now, when Edwina refused to marry, and her family despaired of her, no one had ever told her that her mother would be disappointed.

It had never occurred to her. She had never had to wonder about it.

Thinking about it now, she knew that if one of her siblings was to say something like that, it would break her heart.

And even though she had never wanted to care about the Duke, she did feel compassion for him. Nobody deserved that.

She wanted to take his mind off of things, she realized.

“I’m glad you were able to come out and see me today,” she said.

“Are you?” He smiled. “I thought you might be vexed by it when I sent the message. I don’t think you’ve ever been pleased to see me before.”

“Well, I’ve come to find value in the time we spend together,” she replied.

“So, you do like me.”

She glanced at him and saw that he was grinning.

The joke was at her expense, and ordinarily, she would have felt flustered and frustrated. She might have said something angrily to him. But right now, it was so good to see him acting like his old self again that she couldn’t bring herself to feel any sort of outrage.

“I never said I didn’t like you,” she laughed.

“Oh, you said it many times and at great length.”

“Perhaps I implied it.”

“You heavily implied it. You left very little room for doubt.”

“All right,” she said. “Very well, I admit it—I like you.”

“I knew it.”

“A little bit. Don’t make me change my mind. I still could.”

“Oh, I doubt that. Within days, I’m sure you’ll be head over heels in love with me.” He gave her a roguish grin that would have had her gnashing her teeth in frustration in the past, but today, she burst out laughing.

In spite of herself, she truly was enjoying his company far more than she had ever expected she could.

They walked further into town, and Edwina found herself hoping that the promenade might continue for a while. Suddenly, shockingly, she didn’t want their time together to be at an end.