Page 59 of Saved By the Rakish Duke

Duncan joined his friends on the picnic blanket they had spread on the grass and let out a sigh. “It's not that,” he insisted—though his tone was less convincing than he would have liked.

He gradually recounted his final conversation with her from last night while his friends listened with utmost seriousness, “...she seems irritated with me, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why. How am I supposed to apologize if-”

“You fool!” Fairhaven propped himself up on his elbows. “We told you to be more careful! She’s probably fallen for you and is heartbroken that you won’t return her-”

“No.” Duncan cut him off—did he sense a hint of bitterness in his own voice? “Lady Penelope has always been well aware of my rakish nature and has chastised me for it from the very moment we met. She could never—would never—see me that way.”

His friends exchanged silent looks with each other—clearly disagreeing with Duncan, just not out loud. His lips parted to protest, but Fairhaven beat him to it.

“We could find out for sure.” Fairhaven pushed, “What if we invited her to the opera with the rest of u-”

“Don’t bother her,” Duncan warned, “She made it clear that she wants absolutely nothing to do with me from this point onwards—and that certainly extends to you lot too.”

But his objections fell on deaf ears.

A familiar mischievous glint shone in Harlington’s eyes. “If we convincedherto join us, then we could practically guarantee Blackmoore’s presence.”

“Don’t even think about it,” Duncan warned.

“You are neither her father nor her husband.” Harlington clicked his tongue as he reminded him, “If it turns out that she does indeed want to join us in the end, who are you to stop her?”

“She willnotwant to join us, this much I can assure you,” came Duncan's firm reply. “You’re both out of your minds if you think I will let you bother her.”

“What about a race?” Fairhaven flashed them a giddy grin. “If you get back inside before us, we’ll drop it. But if either of us beat you to it...”

A moment passed as the friends exchanged silent glances. In the next moment, all three friends had leaped to their feet and were sprinting back towards the house.

CHAPTER20

As they crossed the opera entrance’s threshold Duncan lightly tugged at his cravat—which happened to be annoying him considerably more than usual.

When his eyes adjusted to the warm light from the chandeliers that hung above them, he snuck a peripheral glance at Lady Penelope and Mother to his right side. The entire building felt alive and abuzz with excitement, which was hardly a surprise now that the Season was in full swing.

Out of the corner of his eye, Duncan eyed Lady Penelope’s throat swallow, causing him to clench a fist.

She never seemed comfortable around large crowds.He bit his lip, wishing he could offer his arm or a word of encouragement to help ease her into this.

If it were up to him, she wouldn’t have to go through any of this. But he had lost the race when Harlington tackled him to the ground just a few yards away from the manor’s backdoor, thus allowing Fairhaven the opportunity to run inside and search for Mother.

Duncan shoved Harlington off and sprinted to the drawing room, but by the time he sunk against the doorframe panting, Mother was already chirping about how the opera sounded like such a splendid idea.

A part of him held onto the hope that Lady Penelope would decline Mother’s invitation. But on the other hand, he was hardly surprised that she had ended up accepting because well, she clearly had a soft spot for Mother and didn’t want to disappoint her.

He had considered warning her about what lay in store, warning her that this was all just an elaborate conspiracy to give Fairhaven an excuse to get closer to Lady Beatrice.

A hand landed on Duncan’s shoulder as Harlington greeted them all. Once pleasantries had been exchanged, he dragged them across the room towards where Fairhaven chatted with Ladies Beatrice and Madalene along with their families.

Lady Georgina's family must be running late.Duncan noted silently.

Lady Georgina was the one he had been ‘assigned’ to keep busy the entire night. And ordinarily, he wouldn’t have minded. In fact, under different circumstances, he probably would have relished the opportunity.

He would have showered the unsuspecting debutante with attention and praise, laughed at everything she had to say, offered to show her around the opera house whilst spewing facts about its history and decor he had committed to memory, and so on and so forth.

But none of that appealed to him in the slightest now and Duncan couldn’t help but wonder whether the people who claimed that he was behaving differently now were right after all.

"Your Grace!”

The excited exclamation cut through the fog of his thoughts, and he quickly mustered his best smile for Lady Beatrice’s mother, “Lady Thornlowe!”

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