Page 38 of A Spinster to Reform the Duke
She gasped as she felt a touch to her waist and looked to the side. Eliza, Amelia and Lord Herberton were not looking their way, thank goodness! Or they would have seen the Duke take her waist as he set her straight on her feet, preventing her from falling.
She stepped out of his grasp and returned to her seat, trying to hide her blush in her teacup, for that touch had done something to her body, making her hands tremble.
“I could ask you to trust me again that it is worth pursuing. You could always try a pseudonym if you are so convinced your own name will not succeed.”
“There’s that question again,” Rebecca said with a mischievous smile and looked up at him. “You’re always asking me to trust you.”
“I rather think you do by now, don’t you?” he said, bearing a smile of his own as he lifted up the poetry as demonstration.
God’s wounds, I do.
* * *
“I am sure you are quite wrong.”
“Am I?” the Duke asked as he took Rebecca’s arm, leading her out of the box at the theatre. “I rather like my own opinion,” he said, half mocking himself.
“I had noticed,” she mused wryly, pulling a laugh from him. Rebecca looked behind her to see Eliza and Lord Herberton were following, with Eliza’s lady’s maid at their side to act as another chaperone. Rebecca and the Duke had been roped in to attend as chaperones themselves for the excursion to the theatre, though she had noticed that she and the Duke had spent more time talking to each other than watching her sister and his friend together.
“I think you and I could talk for hours on subjects, and we would not get bored,” the Duke whispered to her as he led her through the crowd. They were heading toward the function room at the back of the theatre, where the spectators were to gather for drinks.
“Perhaps not, we might argue though,” Rebecca pointed out with a smile, earning a hearty nod from the Duke.
“Yes, I had noticed that too. We are starting to draw comments, have you noticed that?” His words brought her up short.
As they stepped into the function room, already busy with guests milling back and forth, she looked away from them all. She ignored the tower of crystal glasses that had been carefully constructed for display, and she ignored the ladies’ heads dressed in turbans and feathers that turned back and forth, looking for people they knew. Rebecca rested her eyes solely on the Duke.
“What kind of comments?” she asked.
“Some which might add to what was written in that scandal sheet the other week,” he said with a wince.
“Ah, and here I was thinking we had escaped scandal.” Rebecca found her arm retreating from the Duke’s. She felt cold and empty without his touch, but what else could she do? She had to avoid another mention in the scandal sheets.
“Ignore them. Their whispers will soon move onto another.”
“You sound confident.”
“I am,” the Duke said firmly, earning her attention another time. He had dressed handsomely that evening, with a dark green waistcoat that had her eyes flitting down to his chest, and a black tailcoat that emphasized the athletic figure, making her mouth dry. “They whisper for a while, then they move onto a story they find much more interesting. Wait until my friend proposes to your sister. After that, they will talk of nothing else. Now, shall we get a drink?”
Rebecca found her arm taken again by the Duke. She couldn’t respond, for her jaw had dropped as he escorted her through the people toward the crystalware.
“P-proposes?” she stammered in surprise. “He wishes to marry her? So soon?”
“Shh, lower your voice, my Lady. I do not think my friend wants everyone here to know his intentions,” the Duke encouraged with a wave of his hand.
“But…” Rebecca trailed off and looked round as they walked. She sought out Lord Herberton’s and Eliza’s position on the other side of the room, so engrossed with one another that they barely seemed to notice they were in the company of others at all.
“Do you still disapprove of my friend as a match for your sister?”
“What?” Rebecca looked back at the Duke as they stopped by the drinks table. “I didn’t disapprove of him. I only…”
“Feared him?”
“That is unfair,” she said with raised eyebrows. “I didn’t fear him. I was nervous of him.”
“Has he not proved himself to you yet?” the Duke asked, his dark blue eyes penetrating into her. Rebecca shifted between her feet, feeling analyzed to the soul by that gaze.
“He seems a good man and his interest appears genuine. The way he cared for her the day she fainted was a relief for me to see,” Rebecca hurried to explain herself.
