Page 6 of The Duke I Wished For
Her breathing grew shallow.
“Miss, if you’ll just excuse?—”
“I was hoping to speak with you,” she said. Drat. Was that her voice? She sounded far too breathless.
The man glared down at her.
“I realize this is…unusual,” she said. A hysterical laugh rose up in her chest at the understatement.
Unusual? They hadn’t even been introduced! And she’d turned the poor man into her very own tree trunk. Unusual was putting it mildly.
The gentleman crossed his arms and leveled her with a hard stare. “What do you want, Miss…”
She opened her mouth and then she closed it. Her mind went blank for a moment. Perhaps it was the deep, dark voice or the oh-so-serious glower, or the fact that his question seemed to echo the one she’d been stewing over since she and her friends had gathered ’round the maypole. But she found herself tilting her head to the side, her own brows knitting together in thought. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”
One of his brows arched slowly. Which was a relief. All that frowning and furrowing looked like it would give a man a headache.
“What is it that I want, I mean,” she added. As if that would clear things up.
“Yes, well…” The man’s expression made it clear he thought her a complete dolt. “While you ponder that, I’ll just excuse myself, shall I?”
Her mother’s voice cut through the crowd. “Have you seen Daffodil?”
The gentleman turned to leave her and Daffodil grabbed his arm. “Wait!”
His gaze dropped to her hand.
Her hand which…she should remove from his person. One part of her mind knew she should stop touching the stranger, but the other part of her mind was tracking Mr. Benson.
Mr. Benson’s eyes narrowed on her and her stomach churned dangerously. She moved so she was once more safely hidden behind the gentleman of tree trunk proportions.
It was decided. She’d rather humiliate herself with some stranger whom her mother didn’t want her to marry than make nice with the odious man coming toward her.
With a bright smile, she said, “Since we’re already talking, don’t you think we ought to get to know one another?”
He stared.
She wet her lips. Delilah once said Daffodil could outcharm a snake charmer. Surely she could manage to make one grim tradesman smile. “Have you been in London long, Mr.…”
“No.” He didn’t fill in the blank. Though, to be fair, she hadn’t given her name either.
She nodded eagerly as if his one-word answer was fascinating. “And the weather, do you find it?—”
“Miss, I do not know what you’re about, but this is highly irregular behavior.”
“Isn’t it though?” Her laugh was more hysterical than charming, she’d be the first to admit. “But needs must, and all that,” she said vaguely.
What was she talking about? She had no idea.
Movement in the crowd to her right caught her eye and she saw a certain beady-eyed suitor bearing down on her. His pace had slowed but his gaze raked over her from head to toe, appraising her with a smirk that made her belly clench with terror.
She shifted, putting the tree trunk between her and Mr. Benson.
This Benson fellow wanted to get to know her? “Ha!”
“Pardon?”
“Oh, er…I was just thinking that…” Her gaze met his. “We ought to get to know each other.”
