Page 72 of A Deviant Spinster for the Duke
A fine orchestra played a lively tune that had coaxed a few brave couples to dance, while the rest mingled and gossiped, picked at the array of delicious morsels laid out at the back of the room, and supped the punch and lemonade at their leisure.
Itshouldhave been a pleasing scene, but Duncan wanted to kick them all out, sending them home without so much as a ‘farewell.’ He wanted to retreat back into the empty silence and endless solitude of Thornhill Grange. But, more than anything, he no longer wanted to have to look at Roger Grove, Viscount of Campbell.
“Who?” Lionel asked, keeping Duncan company. Or keeping an eye on him.
Duncan sniffed, knocking back the contents of his glass: punch, mixed with a liberal dose of his brandy from his hip flask. “Nothing. It is of no importance.”
“I beg to differ, if it is making you glare like that,” Lionel replied, wearing a concerned frown.
Duncan slipped his hip flask from his pocket and poured what was left into the now empty glass. “Go and dance with your wife, Lionel. Admire her, cherish her, pretend no one exists but the two of you and your darling child. I am in a foul temper—do not let me ruin your evening.”
“Amelia has gone to Skeffington with Valeria, Lockie,” Lionel said, a touch hesitant. “She is meeting Isolde there, with the boys. Edmund is on his way here.”
Tilting his head to unravel the tight knot at the base of his neck, where all of his restless nerves seemed to be trickling from, Duncan resisted the urge to down the brandy in one. “Why hasshegone to Skeffington?”
He knew the answer already, but he wanted to hear it.
“To help with wedding preparations,” Lionel replied.
“Preparations?” Duncan scoffed, his nose wrinkling. “That oaf has only just announced the engagement. Why would anyone need to begin wedding preparations so soon?”
Lionel stared down into his own drink, a more sedate measure of punch. “They are getting married in three weeks. It is best to begin preparations as soon as possible.”
“Ah, well, how am I to know that? I have never been married.” Duncan grumbled under his breath as his sharp gaze found Roger among the guests.
The red-haired man with the giddy grin was in the middle of a small crowd of congratulants, lapping up the blessings and felicitations with false modesty. Duncan could hear him, fending off comments that he must be the luckiest man in Christendom, shooing away any suggestion thatshewas the lucky one, grinning all the while.
You do not deserve her,Duncan seethed.There is not a man living who is deserving of her. She is the San Graal. She is a goddess. She cannot be destined to end up as the bored wife of a dull husband.
“Lockie?” Lionel’s voice carried a quality found only in fathers and brothers; a stern affection that demanded attention.
“Hmm?”
Lionel frowned. “Why do you care so much? Did you not tell me yourself that your aim was to help Valeria do exactly this—find a husband before the Season’s end?”
For a moment, Duncan wished he had never imparted the truth to his dear friend. He should have lied at the dressmaker’s shop and said the purple gown was for an old flame or a current paramour. That would have quietened Lionel; he had never liked to hear much about Duncan’s exploits. Exploits that Duncan no longer liked to think about, either.
If I were a better man, Imightbe worthy of Valery. But I am no better than Roger—I am merely his opposite.The realization stuck in Duncan’s throat like a fragment of chicken bone, working its way down into his heart.
“I do not care,” he said flatly.
Lionel pulled a face. “It sounds like you do.”
“Very well—I do not care that Valeria is getting married, I care about the choice of husband.” Duncan took a sip of his brandy. “Roger Grove is the gentlemanly equivalent of cabbage soup.”
Clamping a hand over his mouth, Lionel spluttered out a laugh. “That is rather unkind, Lockie. He is a decent sort.”
“And cabbage soup will allay hunger, but that does not mean anyone looks forward to seeing it served,” Duncan replied, the brandy burning its way down his throat.
“No one says, “Goodness, I shouldrelisha huge bowl of cabbage soup! That is what Roger is, but Valeria… she is fresh apple pie, just baked, on a snowy winter’s day after wandering the fieldsall afternoon. She is a cold glass of lemonade on the hottest day of the year, allowing you to feel like you can breathe again. She is… far greater than him, and I simply believe that she deserves more.”
Amusement danced across Lionel’s face, his eyebrow raised in playful accusation. “Do you think, maybe, that she might deserve to be a duchess instead of a viscountess?”
“I would have to know the duke in question,” Duncan replied, rejecting the bait. “There are not too many eligible ones left.”
“What if you knew him very well? Personally, in fact?” Lionel pressed, enjoying himself far too much, oblivious to the very real battle raging inside Duncan.
“I told you,” Duncan insisted, “I do not care that she is marrying. I carewhoshe is marrying.Icertainly am not deserving of her—why, I am the very last man I would pair her with. Not eligible in the slightest.”
