Page 7 of A Duke to Seal the Deal
“Now, have you quite recovered from your adventure the other day?” he remarked.
Her cheeks colored even further, and he regretted for a moment that he had caused her embarrassment. “Indeed, Your Grace, I have.”
“It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, despite the rather unusual circumstances,” he continued. He could not help but feel that she was making him work rather hard to keep the conversation going.
She nodded. “Everyone is pleased to see you back in society, Your Grace.”
“But not you, though?” he asked, trying to stifle the amusement building up inside him. “Did you think you could hide away from me all evening?”
She looked up at him, her eyes flashing in exactly the same way as they had when she appeared in the clearing covered in mud. “I am not trying to hide from you, Your Grace!” She stopped and bit her lip. “Forgive me, I spoke sharply. What I meant is that I would rather hide away from everyone.”
“You would hide away from everyone at a ball?” he asked, incredulous. “I cannot believe it. Surely the whole purpose of such a gathering is for young ladies to show themselves off, to mingle with the other guests, and enlarge their acquaintance?”And find husbands,he thought to himself, but he knew he did not need to say those words out loud. The meaning was unspoken between them; she, in fact, would no doubt be more acutely aware of the fact than even he was, with all the expectations that society placed on ladies of her age.
He watched as Miss Hervey glanced around the room, then fixed those honey-tinged eyes back on him. “You must see, Your Grace, that my sister and I do not quite fit in here?”
“I cannot imagine what you mean,” he said as blandly as he could manage.
She laughed out loud. “Has no one ever told you before that you are a terrible liar?”
“Well, perhaps I am better at lying than you are at hiding!”
She flashed him a smile, and Luke felt something inside him shift. He forced himself to look away for a moment. She was unlike any lady he had ever met before, with her frank openness and a growing willingness to engage in playful banter with him.
“But Miss Hervey,” he went on. “If you prefer it, I shall leave you alone, but I confess that I am still at a loss to understand it that you would choose to come here and then hide yourself away like this.”
She let out a gentle sigh, glancing down for a moment at her dress. “We are oddities here, Your Grace, do you not see?”
He paused for a moment before continuing. He felt that it was important not to say the wrong thing right at this moment. “I have heard… I have sometimes heard people mention your family…” He trailed off, seeing the frown crossing her face.
“I know what people say about us,” she said with a slight shrug. “I wish I did not care, but it is hard not to feel something in response to the disdain. I regret it more for my sister than for myself, in truth.” She looked across the room, her eyes finding her sister, who was now chatting with a group of ladies of their acquaintance at the edge of the dance floor. “Martha manages these things better than me, but even so. It is not nice to be treated the way we are.”
“And you think it is due to your family?” Luke asked. He felt that he was at risk of crossing a boundary with this young lady who was almost a stranger to him, and yet she seemed willing to discuss it with him, with a candidness that he had never experienced before in such a scenario.
“Our mother, you know, she was most unusual.” She paused. “That lady over there, she is our stepmother.”
Luke followed her gaze to where Lady Haddington was standing, holding court amongst a group of matrons of the ton. He could imagine the sorts of things they were discussing, standing there surveying the scene like a gaggle of geese on the edge of a duck pond. He found it hard to take it seriously, the pantomime of society. And yet he knew that now, as the new Duke of Seton, he would have to spend many more hours in settings such as this.
“I did know of the loss of your mother,” Luke said. “I am sorry for it.”
“It was some years ago now,” she replied softly. “But I still feel the loss of it most keenly.” She looked up at him, her dark eyes wide. He saw again that fleck of amber in her orbs, a most intriguing quality unlike anything he had ever seen before. “Your loss is much more recent, Your Grace. I am very sorry for it.”
He bowed, moved by her compassion. “Thank you, Miss Hervey.”
They were quiet for a moment before he spoke again. “I should have gone for some punch for you. Forgive my lack of consideration.”
“Not at all, Your Grace. My sister will be back soon, I am sure, and I do not need two glasses at once, tempting though it is to partake of rather too much and allow one’s senses to be dulled.” She smiled a little wryly as she spoke.
“And do you always hide away like this at balls?” he asked. He still felt that he had not quite got to the bottom of it, her strange approach to society events.
She looked at him a little archly. “No one will ask the Hervey sisters to dance, Your Grace. They all believe that we are as unusual as our mother was and do not wish to be seen standing up with us.”
“But your mother was a lady?” Luke wondered for a moment if he had gone too far, but he had not heard any hint of real scandal about Miss Hervey’s family, or he would not have asked the question.
“She was not a lady when she met my father. She was a commoner.” Charlotte replied firmly. “And when she became ennobled by her connection to my father, everyone expected her to conform, perhaps out of gratitude at her elevation. But she had many interests and passions that people would not consider ladylike. She liked to work in the garden with her own hands rather than simply wandering around ordering the gardeners about. And she liked to help in the kitchens, experimenting with different recipes.” Luke saw a flicker of something cross her face as she spoke. Perhaps she was remembering something specific about her mother and feeling a pang of grief for her loss as she did so.
“None of those things sound so terrible, though?” Luke said. “It is not unheard of for a gentleman to marry a lady from the lower ranks.”
“Not terrible, no, but enough for people to view us with suspicion.” She sighed. “You know how it is in the ton. People do not like it when someone is different, when someone dares to step out of the mold of what society expects of them.” She stopped abruptly. “Forgive me for rambling on.” She smiled and looked away.
