Page 73 of The Duke on Her List
“Gabriel, truly, I don’t,” she protested. “Are you upset that I came to this ball? I didn’t know you were going to be here.” Her stomach clenched. “Perhaps we ought to share our social schedules with one another, if it displeases you, so that we can ensure it won’t happen again.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped. “You know I don’t mind if you attend a ball. That’s your business. It’s your life.”
“Then why are you upset?”
“I don’t understand what I just saw in there,” he said. “Lady Claire…she’s a joke, Agnes. She’s nobody. She was never anything to me, and you can see for yourself that she’s the sort of lady who’s willing to abase herself by begging a gentleman for his attention. Your least favorite kind of person, I’d have thought.”
“Well, and what?” Agnes asked. “Did you get the impression I liked her or something? I can assure you, I didn’t. I don’t know why you’re disappointed.”
“I’m disappointed because I’ve come to expect so much more from you!” he burst out. “You are the last person in the world I’d ever have thought would stand there and allow herself to be spoken to in such a hateful manner. I would have thought you would give her exactly the response she deserved. I was watching from across the room when she confronted you. I kept waiting to see you put her in her place, but no matter how long I watched, it didn’t happen. I came over and intervened because I felt as if I had to. I thought you would take care of things yourself, but you didn’t.”
Agnes swallowed hard.
“Why?” he pressed her. “Why would you allow her to speak to you that way? Why would you let anyone do it? I’ve never seen that side of you. I didn’t like it.”
Agnes sighed. “Your Grace…”
“Why are you calling me that?”
“It’s what’s appropriate,” she said. Hearing Lady Claire refer to him by his title had reminded Agnes of that fact. They had been pretending to be close for so long that she had nearly allowed herself to forget it wasn’t real. “You and I are not in a courtship, Your Grace. It was one thing to use your name while we were pretending, but now that we no longer are, there is no reason to go on acting. I should resume proper address when I speak to you, and you ought to do the same when you speak to me.”
He regarded her. “That’s really what you want? Proper address?”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “Can you grant me that?”
He sighed. “If it’s what you want,” he agreed. “But…Lady Agnes, you must do something for me in return.”
“We’re past the point of exchanging favors,” she told him.
He ignored that. “If someone tries to give you a hard time like that again, don’t hold back. You must be able to stand up for yourself. It’s one of my favorite things about you—that strength you have. I couldn’t bear it if it was gone.”
He gazed into her eyes.
He had no right to ask this of her. He had no right to ask anything of her.
Agnes turned and hurried away without giving him an answer.
CHAPTER 34
The image of Agnes turning and running from him continued to haunt Gabriel well into the following day.
Whyhad she done it? Had it been so upsetting to her, what he had said? He ran through his words again and again in his mind, trying to sort them out, trying to understand what he had done wrong. All he’d said was that he wanted her to stand up for herself. That couldn’t be so wrong, could it? Surely that was something she wanted for herself.
She had always been self-righteous. Always so sure that her own ideas and opinions were the best ones. Maybe that was all this was. Maybe she had run from him simply because she didn’t take kindly to being told what to do. That would certainly fit with his experience of her, he thought wryly. She was just sostubborn.
But it didn’t feel to Gabriel as if he had hit upon the right answer there. This was more than her usual stubbornness. This was something deeper. She had been genuinely upset in thatmoment. He had seen it in her face—the way her lips had whitened, the way she had grimaced and looked away before she had run. It had seemed to him that she was in real pain.
Something I did caused her pain. Something I did hurt her, but I don’t know what or how.
He gritted his teeth. It was no good to dwell on this. He had to do his best to set it aside. His friends had been correct when they had told him he needed to focus on the possibility of spending time with another woman, he decided. Though he knew he would never be interested in a serious courtship with anybody else, perhaps days of frivolity would take his mind off Agnes.
It would be impossible for me to take a new person seriously. All I would ever be able to think about would be the ways in which she was not Agnes. The ways in which she didn’t measure up.
He shook his head. He had become so enamored of Agnes that it was going to loom like a shadow over his life from now on, and he had no idea what to do about that.
The door to his study opened, and Helena poked her head in. “Uncle Gabriel?”
Gabriel looked up from the ledgers that were open in front of him.
