Page 5 of Duke with a Deception
“Tomorrow?” she asked.
“If you wish it.”
“Perhaps you and my brother can discuss…the details,” she murmured. “I know we wanted to have our honeymoon abroad, but now I can’t seem to recall just where.”
“I believe it was France,” he told her. “Paris for some new gowns, then perhaps a jaunt to the Riviera.”
It sounded plausible to him.
Her gaze searched his, growing distant. “I don’t remember deciding upon France.”
“You may always choose a new destination if there is one that you would prefer better,” he suggested.
“Kingham, I need to speak with you,” Riverdale bit out. “Alone.”
How tedious.
He sent his old chum a smile. “Of course.”
“Tomorrow,” Lady Verity repeated to him, her hold on him imperative, as if she feared he might disappear.
Likely, it was some deep-seated memory of the betrothed she had loved and lost worming through her thoughts now. She didn’t want to lose him a second time. He felt another pang somewhere deep within at her rare show of vulnerability. He’d spied it once before, when he had caught her weeping at a ball.
“Tomorrow,” he promised softly.
Which was quite unusual for him. He never made promises. Not to women anyway, for he had no intention of keeping them. Frivolous, useless things, oaths and vows and promises. Or so he had always thought.
Lady Verity released her hold on him, and he mourned the loss of her touch. Some wild part of him yearned to snatch her up in his arms and carry her away at once. To take her to his town house and keep her there, where she belonged. But he couldn’t do that just yet.
So he watched politely as the duchess and Lady Verity excused themselves and then departed the drawing room before facing his irate friend.
The door had scarcely closed on the ladies’ backs when Riverdale turned on King with a snarl, his expression predictably murderous. “Would you care to explain to me just what the bloody hell is happening here?”
“I should think it rather straightforward. I am engaged to your sister.”
“The hell you are.”
King shrugged. “The lady and I say otherwise.”
“Verity isn’t herself, curse you.” Riverdale glowered. “The physician has explained that the blow to her head has addled some of her thoughts. She has no memory of the fire or what happened to her in the orphanage.”
“But she remembers that we have had an understanding,” he lied without conscience.
Riverdale was his friend, yes. Like the other members of their set—Brandon, Camden, Whitby, and Richford—King considered him a brother. But there was something about what he felt for Lady Verity that transcended any fraternal connection to Riverdale. King had always been unafraid to seize what he wanted, without compunction. Loyalty to old bonds did not alter that.
“You had no understanding,” Riverdale countered.
King simply stared at his friend, willing him to deny it, not faltering. “We have been growing close.”
That much was true.
His calm reminder made Riverdale blanch. “If you have been improper with her?—”
“I’ve done nothing of the sort,” King interrupted.
He was a scoundrel and a cad, and he was shockingly in dearth of morals, but even he would not stoop to seducing his friend’s innocent sister out of wedlock.
Riverdale nodded, looking relieved. “Thank Christ for that. But you must agree that this is highly irregular.”
