Page 25 of The Duke and His Cinderella
“Eleanor, go and sit at the end of the table there, beside Lord Canterbury.”
Eleanor looked at the empty seat her mother was pointing to and frowned. Lord Canterbury looked to be at least ten years older than she was. He had an unpleasant looking expression on his face, as if he had just smelled something that didn’t agree with him. Eleanor had no desire to sit next to him, much less to spend the entire meal trying to make conversation with him.
She looked around, hoping to find another seat that she might be able to take instead.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Eleanor, just go sit down,” her mother said, giving her a little push. “Nobody has any time or patience for your antics this week. I’m sure you can manage to make polite conversation for the length of a single meal. It’s not as if you’re being asked to marry him!”
No, she wasn’t—but Eleanor was no fool. She knew where this was headed. Of course her parents would contrive to have her speak to as many gentlemen as possible over the course of this week. Of course they were doing their best to put her into situations that would force her to get to know gentlemen she might not otherwise have spoken to. It only made sense. They wanted to see if anyone would request permission to marry her, and Lord Canterbury was the first to receive the chance.
She wondered how blatantly she dared sabotage their attempts right in front of their faces. Of course, they wouldn’t interrupt dinner to reprimand her, but the more she resisted here, the more likely it was that they would tighten their control when it came to the next gentleman. And whoever they presented to her next might be even more objectionable than Lord Canterbury. Better to have a quiet, impersonal conversation, one in which she could do her best to seem uninteresting to Lord Canterbury so that he wouldn’t attempt to pursue her. That would be the easiest way through this. If she was very lucky, perhaps she could make it through this week without attracting the interest of any suitors at all—although she was sure her parents would be furious with her if she did.
She went down to the end of the table as she’d been instructed and reluctantly took the seat beside Lord Canterbury. He turned to her and opened his mouth, clearly about to ask a question?—
“Ah, this seat’s available!” Phineas slid into the seat on Eleanor’s other side. She had never been more pleased to see him in all her life, and she beamed at him in relief.
Lord Canterbury frowned slightly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t believe you and I have been introduced, sir.”
“Ah! Phineas Bond, Viscount of Farlong,” Phineas said. “It’s my brother’s wedding we’re here to celebrate.”
“I see. A pleasure to meet you,” Lord Canterbury said. Eleanor noticed that he didn’t bother to introduce himself, a breach of etiquette that would have made her parents gasp. She filed it away in her mind to bring up to them later in case she needed to offer a reason for her reluctance to marry this gentleman in particular. They would have no sympathy for the fact that she didn’t want to marry someone much older than herself, and if she said she found him boring, they wouldn’t care much about that either. But bad manners were one thing that might sway them.
Or perhaps not. Maybe they only expect very good manners from ladies. I’m sure they would be willing to make all kinds of excuses for a gentleman.
“I’m pleased you found me, Phineas,” she said, smiling at him. “You know how much I want to spend time with you this week, since our brother and sister are the ones getting married.”
“You know, it may sound odd to say this,” Phineas said, “but I was actually taken a bit by surprise when Jacob told me they were going to marry. Did you expect it?”
“I’m the same as you, I think,” Eleanor said. “I was sure it would happen eventually, but I didn’t think that it would happen whenit did. I thought perhaps in another year. But then, maybe that was wishful thinking, knowing that my parents’ attention would turn to me as soon as Marina’s marriage was official—not that it hasn’t been on me so far anyway.” She recalled again her disastrous debut season and how upset her parents had been when, ball after ball, she’d failed to report having attracted the interest of a single suitor. They had been so disappointed in her. She wished theyhadbeen focusing their attention on her sister, but it really shouldn’t have come as any surprise to her that they hadn’t. Maybe that was the reason she hadn’t believed Marina’s marriage could be imminent. Her parents had simply had so much to say about her own lack of a suitor that it had been difficult to imagine that someone could be making them happy at the same time, even though she had seen Marina doing everything they’d asked of her.
“Well, I couldn’t be more pleased that it’s happening,” Phineas said. “I don’t know when I’ve seen Jacob so happy. Just look at the two of them.”
Eleanor looked. Marina and Jacob were sitting side by side, their heads bent together, murmuring about something to one another in voices that nobody else could hear. “Itisnice to see Marina in such a light mood,” she agreed. “She’s usually so serious. Jacob brings out a side of her that I don’t often get to see, and it really is a pleasure. I can’t imagine anyone better for her.”
“It’s so nice to see people find the perfect person for them,” Lord Canterbury said. He let his arm brush against Marina’s—another breach of etiquette, she thought, for she certainly did not welcome and had done nothing to invite his touch. She didn’tfeel as if she could pull away from him without being more rude than she was willing to be—after all, if she did pull away, she risked causing a scene. Her parents might even tell her that she should have allowed such a harmless touch whether she liked it or not. It hurt to think that they could expect such a thing of her, but she had no idea how far they would go in their desire to see her successfully married and out of their hands.
She waited a few seconds so that it wouldn’t be too obvious what she was doing, then reached for the bread basket to move her arm away from his. “These rolls look delicious,” she said, adding one to her plate.
“I see you’re a young lady who likes to eat,” Lord Canterbury commented.
Phineas stared at him openly, but Eleanor said nothing. Her mother had counseled her many times on how important it was to pretend to have a birdlike appetite if she wanted to please a gentleman, but this dinner simply looked so delicious that she couldn’t bring herself to pass up on any of it. Without dignifying Lord Canterbury’s comment at all, she added butter to her bread.
Phineas took a roll. “You’re right,” he told Eleanor loyally. “Hot and fresh, just the way I like them. Your cook has done a wonderful job. If this is the quality we can expect from the food all week long, I may never leave!”
Eleanor looked around the table to see who else was seated where. She caught sight of Lady Hannah, who seemed to havefinally deigned to emerge from the solitude of her room. She didn’t share Phineas’ feelings about the meal, it seemed—she was poking at the lamb on her plate as if unsure of what she was looking at.
“Ah,” Lord Canterbury said. “I see you’ve noticed the Duke of Nightingale.”
Eleanor blinked. She hadn’t registered the duke’s presence, in fact, but now that Lord Canterbury had pointed him out, she did notice. He was sitting to Lady Hannah’s left.
She recalled now how Lady Hannah had insisted that she was going to marry the duke. It was strange, but to look at them now, you would never have guessed it. Eleanor thought the duke looked a bit uncomfortable. Actually, she was reminded, watching him, of her own feelings sitting next to Lord Canterbury—he looked on the edge of his seat, as if he might like to jump up and walk away at the first opportunity. She could tell just by looking at them that the duke had been the one to sit down first, and that Lady Hannah had taken the seat next to him. He didn’t seem happy to see her at all.
Why would anyone be so unhappy to see the person they were going to marry?
But then, that was a question she knew the answer to as soon as she had asked it. It was all too easy to imagine herself promised to Lord Canterbury, or to some other gentleman, and she knew that in that situation she wouldn’t have been happy to see him.Was it possible that the duke was set to marry Lady Hannah, but that he wasn’t happy about it?
Anything is possible, I suppose. But it made less sense to her. Shehadto marry—she had no choice in the matter—because she was a lady and her father had the right to decide those things for her. That wasn’t true of gentlemen, and certainly not of the Duke of Nightingale.If he didn’t want to follow through with a marriage, he had every right to leave it. She wondered why he would go through with it if he was unhappy.
He looked up, almost as if he had been able to register the fact that she was thinking of him, and met her gaze. And though a part of Eleanor wanted to look away, a larger part of her wanted to keep staring into his dark eyes. She held his gaze for a moment—as long as she dared—wondering whether anybody would notice while simultaneously not caring. What difference did it make if anyone saw them looking at one another? Lady Hannah might be angry, she supposed, but surely Lady Hannah must have noticed already that there was some tension between herself and her husband-to-be—Eleanor wasn’t to blame for that.
