Page 11 of Look at Her Duke
The woman was stomping up beside them, and Amelia tried to gain control of her breathing as she turned to face the vision in blue beside her. The woman was blonde and poised, her eyes shooting angry darts, the jewels at her neck and in her hair sparkling almost as much as she herself.
Kipling cleared his throat. “Lady Amelia had an insect—a moth—land on her shoulder. I was assisting her.”
“That isdisgusting,” the woman spat out, shivering. “Aninsecttouched her? Did you kill it?”
Amelia was trying desperately to regain her equilibrium. Kipling wisely ignored the question.
“Lady Amelia Kincaid, may I introduce Lady Emma Iverson?”
The newcomer smiled nastily and reached out her hand. “Hisbetrothed.”
Kip toldhimself he wasn’t hiding. Not really. Hiding was such a strong word.
Aye, he was spending a lot of time in his study, and aye, he was avoiding his mother, and aye, he was having his butler turn away visitors, but he wasn’thiding. Not exactly.
Dinnae lie to yerself, ye dobber. Ye’re absolutely hiding.
“I cannae believe ye actuallyadmittedit to her,” Fawkes Mackenzie mused, staring into the depths of the whisky he hadn’t sipped. “Are ye daft? Did ye forget ye were engaged?”
“I’m no’actuallyengaged,” Kip snapped, sagging back in his chair. “Fine, if our mothers had their way we’d be engaged, but I havenae asked her.”
“Ye danced with her—Emma, I mean—a few times at that ball.”
With a grunt, Kip lifted his booted heels to the large desk in front of him. How did Fawkes always seem to know so much of what was going on? For that matter, how had the man found his way in here?
The butler wouldn’t have let him in, especially not so early in the morning. But this morning Kip had come downstairs, settled himself behind the big desk with the piles and piles of paperwork…and nearly shat himself when Fawkes had unfolded himself from one of the chairs by the hearth.
Had one of his oldest friends taken to house-breaking?
Still, it had been a nice distraction, and the pair had spent several hours catching up and reminiscing. His friend had even proven a steady hand when it came to transcribing the columns of acreage Kip had been wrestling with, and a keen mind when it came to devising a solution to the problem with the retaining wall along the river at Bestingbum.
They’d taken luncheon together, and eventually Fawkes had steered the conversation toward what he clearly wanted to know and perhaps why he had crept around the butler in the first place; what had happened at the ball between Kip and Amelia.
It hadn’t seemed disloyal at the time, to tell the man Kip had known since they were in school together. But now he was second-guessing himself.
“I dinnae love Emma,” he pointed out. “I didnae ken I was expected to marry her until I returned home.”
“As a duke. She likely wouldnae have looked at ye twice, without the title.” Fawkes’s lips curled bitterly as he swirled his drink, but didn’t lift it. “Luckily, ye have made nae public insinuation of a match. But being caught on the balcony with Mellie…”
Amelia.
She preferred to be called Amelia now. But Kip had fallen back on that nickname because to him, that’s who she would always be; Mellie, wild and free and exuberant. He’d admired her as a lassie, and as she’d grown, that admiration had turned to something else. Something delicious.
“Do ye love her?”
Fawkes’s sudden question had Kip’s head jerking up. “What?”
“Ye said ye dinnae love Emma. Do ye love Amelia?”
“I—Christ, Fawkes.” Dragging his hand through his dark hair, Kip glowered at his friend. “What kind of question is that?”
“The kind Alistair is going to be asking, if he finds out ye compromised his sister.”
Kip’s boots slammed into the floor. “I didnaecompromiseher!” Of course he’d thought about it enough over the years—tasting those lips, touching that skin—but he cared too much for her and her family to try such a thing. And yes, he’d only not compromised her because they had been so rudely interrupted… “We were just…talking.”
“And ye told her ye left England because of her. That’s the truth?”
Kip winced. “Aye. I’m sorry.”
