Page 34 of The Duke on Her List
“I’d like that very much,” she agreed, taking his arm. “Reeves, Bridget, I’ll find the two of you a bit later, if that’s all right?”
“Are you sure you don’t want company?” Bridget asked eagerly, and Agnes could tell that she was eager to spend time with them and to get to know a little bit more about Gabriel and about their relationship.
To her surprise, it was Reeves who intervened. He took his wife’s arm and held her back. “Let them alone,” he murmured quietly. “Let them have a moment.”
Gabriel and Agnes walked off together, arm in arm.
“I’m surprised he allowed that,” Gabriel murmured as they made their way through a pair of double doors that led out to the garden path. “I didn’t think he would. I thought he would insist on coming with us, chaperoning us.”
“I think you impressed him,” Agnes said. “He was glad to see you weren’t an utter beast—I think he worried you might be.”
“Why would he fear that?”
“I don’t know,” she gave him a pointed look. “People do have a tendency to assume that a lady is too helpless to watch out for herself, and that anyone she meets will try to take advantage of her. But you wouldn’t know anything about that.”
He wrinkled his nose. “I was right to worry about it at the gentlemen’s club,” he said. “I acknowledge that it didn’t happen, but I was right to be concerned that it might. You won’t convince me otherwise.”
She nodded, not really wanting to revisit that debate. “I think Reeves also wants you to be a good person,” she said. “What I mean is that he wants to be able to put his trust in you, because his preferred outcome in all this is that you and I be married when it’s over.” She hesitated. “I’m already starting to worry about that,” she admitted. “It’s going to be difficult to tell him that our arrangement has come to an end.”
“Will he be angry?”
“Disappointed, I think. Not angry.”
They made their way down the garden path. “Have you been to Heathmare before?” she asked him.
“I haven’t, as a matter of fact.” He turned to look at her. “Have you?”
“The Duke of Heathmare is a close friend of my brother’s,” Agnes explained. “I’ve been coming to this house for as long as it has been his—although that hasn’t as long as a person might speculate it to be. I don’t know if you’re aware of the history of this manor, but Norman wasn’t raised to this title. He came into it only recently, when a distant relative died.”
“Ah, so he didn’t grow up anticipating that he would take on these duties?”
“That’s right. He’s risen well to the challenge, but no, he didn’t expect it to be a part of his life.”
“Life can often be funny like that,” Gabriel mused. “Giving us things we didn’t expect.” He glanced at her.
Agnes didn’t know if he meant to imply anything with that glance, but she couldn’t argue. Life was undoubtedly full of surprises. She would never have imagined that she would be here, walking along the garden path with the Duke of Bellmoor, considering him to be a partner in courtship. And if she had imagined that such a thing might happen to her, she certainly wouldn’t have dreamed that she would actually enjoy the bond between the two of them. That she would want to spend an evening with him.
They rounded a corner and found themselves alone on the path, away from any of the other attendees of the ball.
Agnes swallowed hard. They couldn’t stay here. She knew that. If anyone were to come across them, it would give rise to scandal. And she needed to remember what she had told herself the other day. Scandal might not bother her, but if it had the potential to cause problems for Helena, it wasn’t something they could tolerate.
“We shouldn’t stay here,” she murmured. “We might be seen alone together.”
He was clearly following her thoughts. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go back to the house. I’m sure the musicians will be starting soon, and it would be good to dance. We do want people to see that.” He smiled. “Including your brother, I think, now that I’ve met him. I’m eager for him to see me dancing with you.”
“Why?” She looked at him.
“Because I want him to know that I take this seriously,” Gabriel said. “I didn’t think I was going to care, but, believe it or not, I like the fact that he likes me. I want to keep winning him over.”
“You just like the idea of proving a point to him, I think,” Agnes said with a smile. “But you’re in luck, because I also like that idea. Let’s go back and get a few dances in, and we’ll make sure he sees them.”
They linked arms and walked back to the house.
Agnes’ heart raced as they stepped back onto the main path. A few people looked their way curiously, but no one stopped or took any real notice of them, and she relaxed and allowed Gabriel to lead her back through the doors and into the ballroom.
The moment they stepped inside, the music began to play.
He held out a hand to her. She took it, and for the second time, she began to dance with him in front of a crowd.
