Page 33 of Romancing Daphne

If James hadn’t been certain doing so would only cause more difficulty, he would have applauded.

Father recovered quickly.“Then I shall be pleased to escort Miss Lancaster—”

“Lord Tilburn will be afforded that honor,” the duke declared. “And before you make the next impertinent leap, Mr. Tilburn may escort the youngest Miss Lancaster.”

Ben did the wise thing and nodded without objection. His eyes met James’s for the briefest of moments. The duke’s ease in dealing with their usually difficult and overbearing father had not escaped Ben’s notice.

Father’s expression of pleased contentment seemed a little strained.“And with whom am I to walk in to dinner?”

“Your guest list is no concern of mine.” The duke offered his arm to his wife and turned without comment toward the door. Father stood on the spot, dumbfounded.

“Adam is accustomed to having his way,” Miss Lancaster said quietly. Her eyes held an unmistakable apology. Little did she know just how well James understood the strain of difficult relations.

“My father is as well. The two of them in the same house for the next few hours ought to be entertaining at the least.”

Amusement replaced some of the embarrassment in her expression.“Perhaps they will annoy each other into silence. That would be an unforeseen benefit.”

“Indeed.” He offered her his arm.

“Do you promise not to hold my relatives’ actions against me?” Herlightheartedness hadn’t entirely disappeared. James was grateful for that—it gave him one less person whose problem he needed to fix.

“Only if you will make the same promise to me.”

“It seems we are to be coconspirators, Lord Tilburn,” she said, “bonded together by our mutual lack of Italian and the need to overlook one another’s embarrassing family members.”

“I do believe we could start our own very exclusive club only to find most of London is in similar straits, at least as concerns their relatives.”

She offered a timid smile, nothing earth-shattering nor transformative but sweet and lovely just the same. She would never be declared a diamond nor a breathtaking beauty, but she was pretty.

And she’d surprised him with her show of wit that evening. That she had the strength of character to hold up even in embarrassing and difficult situations was endearing. But liking her even that little bit more made the ruse of his deception that much harder to justify and the pain his dishonesty would cause that much more unfair.

* * *

“Oh, but, Daphne, he was looking at you insuch a way!” Artemis flopped down on her back on Daphne’s bed, both hands pressed to her heart.“He thoroughly likes you. I am certain of it.”

The door of their shared dressing room had opened not long after Daphne had retired for the night. Artemis’s dancing, spinning entrance had quickly given way to an excessively emotive discussion—on Artemis’s part—of James’s hypothetical feelings for her. Under normal circumstances, Daphne would have shooed her from her bedchamber. James’s feelings, however, were too much of a mystery and far too important to forgo the opportunity to hear another opinion.

“Likes, however, is a far cry fromloves,” Daphne pointed out.

“Not so very far.” Artemis spoke as though from great experience.Still lying on her back, she held her hands up, counting off on her fingers.“‘Notices’ comes first, followed by ‘is interested in.’ Then comes ‘likes.’ Then ‘thoroughly likes.’ Next is ‘desperately likes.’ Then the only step left is ‘loves.’” Artemis clasped her hands together and allowed them to sink back down against her heart. She sighed rather too loudly.“You are only two steps from ‘loves,’ Daphne.”

“And you obtained this information from where? A novel?” Daphne knew enough of Artemis’s reading habits and daydreaming tendencies to put very little faith in her declarations of expertise.

Artemis turned on her side, propping herself up on her elbow and looking at Daphne with absolute conviction.“Novels are the very best place to look for this sort of thing. The heroines are always finding themselves the object of affection from a dashing hero.”

“Aren’t these the same heroines you declared do not always survive their amorous adventures?”

“Only the truly tragic ones.”

Daphne leaned back against the pillows piled at the head of her bed.“I believe you said only this morning that I was poised to be a tragic heroine.”

Artemis crinkled her nose.“Persephone is proving far more tragic. She hardly ate a morsel at dinner, seldom spoke, and it was she, not Adam, whowished to leave the dinner early.” Artemis executed another highly dramatic drop onto her back.“’Tis a shame those closest to the tragic heroine always suffer as well. And they are far less likely to survive all the way to the final page.”

“You are not fooling me in the least. You were more anxious than anyone to leave the dinner this evening.”

“Only because everyone treated me like a child.”Artemis’s pout lastedonly a moment before a flash of something resembling an epiphanycrossed her features. That look had always preceded a disastrous plan of some kind or another. Daphne braced herself for her sister’s next words.“If you would only hurry and get married, I could have my come-out, and then I would not be looked at like I’d only just arrived from the nursery.”

“You say that as if getting oneself married were as simple as selecting fabric at a dressmakers.”

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