Page 6 of A Deal with the Broken Duke
“He wants to marry you!”
“Well, I certainly don’t want to marry him, and I wish he would just give up on the whole enterprise and turn his attention elsewhere.”
“I wouldn’t count on that. You know he’s been fixated on you from the moment he first saw you.”
“I know.” Juliet groaned. “I don’t understand it at all, to be honest, Daniel. What does he want with me?”
“You know what he wants! He wants marriage to a beautiful young lady.”
She eyed her brother. “Are you saying I’m a beautiful young lady?”
Juliet had meant to call his bluff, but he nodded. “All teasing aside? Of course you are. Have you not seen yourself in a looking glass lately?”
She had, of course, and she knew what he meant.
Shehadgrown into her looks. When she was young, she had been awkward and pudgy, but the past five years had been very kind to her. She was taller now and much leaner. There had once been a time when she hadn’t been able to bear examining her face in the looking glass, but now that her cheekbones were prominent, her green eyes looked much wider and more alluring. Her honey-brown hair was smoother than it had been in her youth too—the unruly curls had given way to orderly ones.
Still, when she wasn’t standing in front of a looking glass, when she was simply imagining her own appearance, what came to mind was always the girl she had once been. And it was impossible to imagine any gentleman becoming enamored with that girl.
“I don’t know,” she told her brother. “It’s always seemed a bit suspicious to me.”
“You’re too suspicious of everyone. Sometimes people are just who they say they are.”
“I still don’t want to marry him, even if he really is just a perfect gentleman who admires me.”
“Well, that’s fair of you to say. But at some point, you’re going to have to tell him that.”
“What? Just announce to him that I don’t want to marry him? He hasn’t asked me to marry him. That would be ridiculous.”
“Tell him that you’re not interested in him.”
“You know I can’t do that. It would be so rude!”
“Well, then you’re just going to have to hope that he loses interest in you,” Daniel said with a shrug as their carriage came to a halt. “And perhaps you can encourage him to lose interest by dancing with other people. That might show him that you aren’t interested in him.”
The carriage door opened, and a footman helped each of them down. They had chosen a good time to arrive, Juliet thought. People were already flocking towards the front door of Tunney Manor, and she could hear the sounds of music and revelry coming from inside.
She and Daniel followed the crowd to the door and made their way inside. Once they were in, Daniel immediately drew Juliet towards the ballroom.
“Wait,” she said. “Perhaps we should get something to drink first.”
Daniel shrugged. “Go on, then, if you’d like. I’m going to go in to start finding the people I know. Perhaps I’ll get my name on a few ladies’ dance cards as well.”
He grinned at her and disappeared into the ballroom.
Juliet sighed. She had hoped Daniel would stay with her rather than leave her to fend for herself so soon in the evening, but she should have known better than to hope for it. Daniel loved her, she knew, but he had never been one to go out of his way to make things easy for her.
Drinks were being served at a long table in the dining room, whose double doors had been opened so that guests standing there could also watch the dancing. Juliet picked up a glass of wine and sipped it, eyeing the gentlemen at the party and wondering which of them might make the most promising dance partners.
Last season, her father had told her before her very first ball that he would allow her to choose a suitor for herself. There had been offers, of course—Lord Stickland chief amongst them—but she had never found anyone who caught her interest. Perhaps this year would be different and she would finally be able to tell her father that she had successfully found a suitor for herself. Perhaps she would actually get an offer from someone who appealed to her.
Of course, she hadn’t yet met anyone who appealed to her. She was beginning to wonder whether she ever would. Maybe there was something about her that was the problem. Maybe she was focusing too much on the flaws present in the men she had met. After all, everyone else seemed not to have this trouble with finding people, and falling in love. Why was Juliet the only one who had felt absolutely no enthusiasm for anyone she had met?
“Ah, Lady Juliet!”
Oh, no.
It wasn’t so much his voice that she would have recognized anywhere, but was his tone. It was the way he spoke, as if every time he saw her, he found something he had misplaced. It was a sort of relief at having rediscovered what rightfully belonged to him.
