Page 38 of The Duke on Her List
He turned. “Where did you hear that?”
“I’m not going to tell you.”
“Helena…”
“If I tell you who told me, you’ll punish them,” she said serenely.
“So it was one of the staff, then?”
Helena shrugged. “Think what you like.”
It had almost certainly been one of the staff. But she was right. If she wasn’t going to tell him, he couldn’t do anything about it.
He wouldn’t have done anything about it anyway, he realized. He had gone out of his way to make people think he was engaged in a courtship. He couldn’t be angry that word had reached Helena. But did he lie to her or tell her the truth?
“It isn’t a serious thing,” he told her at last. “Your life isn’t going to change.”
“You mean, you aren’t going to marry her?”
“That’s right.” A strange laugh started to well up within him, and he pressed his lips together to hold it back.
“You could marry her if you wanted to,” Helena said. “I mean, don’t think you have to stop yourself for my sake. Because I wouldn’t mind, if it would make you happy. I did knowsomethingwas going on between the two of you, you know. I’m not a fool, Uncle Gabriel.”
“I know you’re not,” he said. “Will you please go to your room like I asked? I’ll be happy to speak with you about all this later.”
“All right,” she said dubiously. “But you’d better answer all my questions when the time comes.”
She scampered out of the room before he could speak to remind her that she didn’t give orders around here.
He turned to resume his pacing, but the next time he faced the door, his butler was standing there. “Your Grace,” he said, “Lady Agnes to see you.”
Gabriel nodded. “All right,” he said. “Show her in to the library and I’ll meet her there.”
The butler disappeared. Gabriel took another moment to gather himself, then realized there was no amount of gathering that would prepare him for what lay ahead. He was just going to have to walk into that room and face what he had agreed to.
She was sitting on the settee, but she jumped to her feet when he came in. “Gabriel,” she said warmly. “It’s good to see you.”
There was a maid in the corner. “Will you excuse us?” Gabriel said.
The maid gave him a surprised look, but she nodded once and hurried from the room.
Agnes watched her go. “That’s sure to start talk,” she observed. “People will wonder what you were doing in a room alone with me.”
“For once, the truth will be more dangerous than the rumors,” he said. “It’s unlikely she would ever guess at what’sreallyabout to happen in here—and that isn’t something we want spread around, I think.”
“No,” Agnes agreed. “I see no reason why people should need to know what’s about to happen. And I assume you won’t be telling Helena about it?”
“Assuredly not,” he said. “Not Helena, not your brother—no one must know.”
“If I didn’t know better,” she said, her lips quirking slightly, “I would think you were ashamed of me.”
“This might be entertaining for you, for reasons I can’t imagine,” he said. “But I don’t think this story would make either one of us look very good if it got out.”
She looked down at her feet. “It isn’t entertaining,” she told him. “It’s empowering. You can’t imagine what it’s like, being a spinster by choice…but always wondering. Never knowing for certain what you might have said or done if things had gonedifferently. After today, I’ll know. I’ll have something I can point to and say that thiswasmy choice. That I wanted the life I have all along.”
“I didn’t realize you were uncertain about what you wanted.”
Her cheeks colored. “I’m not.”
