Page 62 of A Deal with the Broken Duke
She didn’t understand.
When Matilda had been here, things had been normal, hadn’t they? It was Harry who had insisted on keeping the two of them close to him in Daniel’s absence. It had been his idea to walk about the grounds together in the first place. What had changed?
“Come,” Harry said. “Let’s walk.”
But he didn’t take her arm again. In fact, he walked a little bit ahead of her, leading her, and she fell into step behind him. Her stomach churned.
What is this?
Lady Annie’s words played over and over in her mind.
Was she right?
Harry hadn’t seemed mad at all to her before today, but this behavior… it wasn’t just that it was hurtful to her. It didn’t make any sense. At least, Juliet didn’t think that it did.
“Harry,” she called.
He glanced over his shoulder.
“Wait for me.”
He did, allowing her to catch up to him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve left you behind.”
Juliet’s head spun. Now he was being friendly?
“Yes. I can’t keep up with you, not in this gown and these shoes.”
“I forget these things.”
He slowed his pace, and now they were walking side by side, but there was still space between the two of them. He didn’t reach out to take her arm. He didn’t seem to have any interest in talking to her. They were walking together as if someone had ordered them to do that, not as if they genuinely enjoyed each other’s company.
And suddenly, Juliet didn’t want to be with him anymore. Not if it was going to be like this.
I knew I shouldn’t have indulged in my fantasies! Didn’t I tell myself over and over that reality was never going to live up to them?
She might not have stopped at the sight of Lord Cumberland approaching had Harry not been behaving so strangely. But he was, so when she saw someone else she could talk to, she seized on the opportunity. She came to a halt—to her mild surprise, Harry stopped too—and waited for Lord Cumberland to reach her.
“Good day, Lady Juliet,” Lord Cumberland greeted, smiling. Then, he turned to Harry. “Your Grace,” he acknowledged.
Harry frowned, and Juliet wondered whether he was upset at the social misstep. Lord Cumberland really ought to have greeted him first, and the fact that he hadn’t was probably due to the fact that he and Juliet had seen one another quite recently, but Harry couldn’t have known that.
Thinking that perhaps she could help matters, Juliet turned to Harry. “Lord Cumberland and I met at my home not long ago,” she explained.
“At your home?” Harry frowned. “Why?”
“Oh, I came intending to court her.” Lord Cumberland laughed. “Of course, I was roundly rejected.”
“You weren’trejected.” Juliet laughed. “It wasn’t like that. It’s just that I was already spoken for.”
“Do you mean to say that you would have taken an interest if not for His Grace here?”
“You do want to get me into trouble, don’t you?”
Juliet wasn’t quite sure why she was indulging this. It was probably to do with the fact that she genuinely liked Lord Cumberland—he was a charming, affable fellow—combined with the fact that she was enjoying showing Harry that there were gentlemen who genuinely liked her and wanted to be with her and that not all of those gentlemen were horrible, the way Lord Stickland was.
Lord Cumberland would have never been a real option for her. She did like him, but only in a friendly way. There was nothing more there. And her father would have never approved of him anyway, seeing as he was only a baron.
Still, she could see Harry’s jaw clenching as he watched them talk to one another, and a part of her liked it.
