Page 14 of Caught by the Forbidden Duke
He found this embarrassing. He was thirty-two years old. He had navigated some of the more difficult men in the Lords and several of the more difficult women in Europe, and here he stood, directing private grievances at a woman whose only offense was that she was rather better with his ward than he was.
He pressed one hand briefly to the back of his neck, breathing out. “You’re right,” he said, at last. “I was short with him.”
“You were.”
He looked at her. He had looked at her four times tonight, in two different houses, and each time she had been as direct as the time before, which was more direct than almost anyone he knew.
Then a dry, almost reluctant logic presented itself: if she could meddle, so could he.
An idea came to him and, as he rolled it about inside his head, he studied her for a moment. “I have an offer to make you.”
She looked at him with visible caution. “An offer?”
“You want a husband this season,” he said. “My nephew wants to learn the piano. He won’t take to a new teacher; he is reserved about people, and he has taken to you.” He watched her expression. “I am suggesting an arrangement. You teach James piano. In exchange, I will help you find a husband.”
Chapter Four
“An arrangement,” Annabelle said.
He looked back at her. His posture was easy, his glass set down on the side table without ceremony, nothing in his face inviting further discussion.
“Yes.”
“You want me to teach your ward piano. In exchange for your help securing a husband.”
“That is what I said.”
She had spoken to the Duke of Silverford exactly five times before tonight, each occasion brief and conducted at Lucien’s elbow. He stood with his arms at his sides, his expression even in the corridor’s guttering light, and waited.
“You don’t need to offer me anything,” she said. “I’d be happy to teach James regardless.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Then why?—”
“Because Lucien is not here.” He said it without edge; a fact, plainly delivered. “He brought you here under his protection, and he is now at Fairmont on estate business. You are determined to make a match this season. And you have, tonight, spent four minutes in conversation with Lord Fenwick and found nothing amiss.”
Her chin went up. “He seemed civil enough.”
“He has been refused entry to two establishments for conduct I am not going to describe in a corridor at midnight.” He held her gaze. “I know these men. Their habits. The difference between the reputation they maintain in company and the one they keep when company is not watching. You do not.”
She wanted to dispute this. She turned the argument over and found it thinner than she needed. The evening had been instructive enough on that front: Fenwick with his calculating ease, the men at the Linwood soiree that Dominic had named and been correct about, each of his assessments arriving before she had gathered enough information to form one of her own.
He was not wrong, a conclusion which she found genuinely irritating.
She looked away, exhaled once, and rolled her eyes at the middle distance. Then she looked back.
“Fine,” she said. “We have an arrangement.”
“Good.”
“Though… there is the matter of where the lessons are going to be held.” She tilted her head. “It would be simpler to conduct them here. James already knows this house. Moving him to Fairmont every few days seems unnecessary.”
“Fairmont House has a perfectly serviceable instrument.”
“I know that. I am asking why the house where he’s staying would be a problem.”
He looked, briefly, toward the far end of the corridor. Dark stubble shadowed his jaw, making the hard line of it seem even rougher. His eyes held the locked door for a moment before coming back to her, and when they did, they gave her nothing.
