Page 16 of My Deal with the Wrong Duke

“What else would it be?”

She looked at him. The sun caught the loose curl at her temple, turning it copper. Her expression held a quiet amusement that he could not decode, layered beneath caution, beneath years of expecting disappointment.

“I shall see you Tuesday,” she said. She curtsied, turned, walked toward the gate where the Fairchild carriage waited on the street beyond, its paint faded, its horses patient.

Oliver watched her go. Her stride was different, looser. Her shoulders had dropped from their usual position near her ears. She crossed the gravel with the unhurried ease of someone who had spent an hour laughing without meaning to.

He reached for his pocket watch. Opened it, then closed it without reading the time.

The terms were set. The arrangement was clear. Everything was proceeding according to plan.

Then why, as he turned toward Mount Street, did his hand still carry the ghost of her grip, persistent as a question he had not thought to ask?

He shook it off. Commerce, he had called it, with the steady confidence of his own conclusions. He had always been good at conclusions. They were safer than curiosity. More reliable than whatever restless pull had settled beneath his breastbone during that laugh of hers, the second one, the soft one, the one she had offered without defense.

The Season, Oliver reminded himself, was temporary.

But as he reached Mount Street, he glanced once more over his shoulder toward the Park Lane gate, where the faded Fairchild carriage was pulling into the traffic of a city that did not yet know what was coming.

CHAPTER 5

“You have made an arrangement with the Duke of Ashford?”

Eleanor set her teacup down with enough force to rattle the saucer. The sound cut through the quiet of the Whitmore drawing room, where afternoon light fell across the carpet in long, warm stripes. A plate of lemon biscuits sat between them, untouched. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked with the calm authority of an object entirely unaware that it was witnessing a crisis.

Louisa had rehearsed this conversation four times on the carriage ride from Curzon Street. She had prepared answers to every anticipated objection, had practiced keeping her voice level, had reminded herself that Eleanor’s reaction would be dramatic. She had not prepared for the silence that followed.

Eleanor stared at her. The silence stretched. Louisa could hear the distant thud of hooves on the street below, the muffled voice of a maid in the corridor, the faint creak of the house settling around them.

“Say it again,” Eleanor said.

“I have entered into an arrangement with the Duke of Ashford. He will court me publicly throughout the Season. In exchange, I will help deter the matchmaking mothers who pursue him at every gathering.” Louisa folded her hands in her lap. Her gloves were slightly damp at the fingertips. “It is practical. It benefits us both.”

“Practical,” Eleanor repeated the word as though tasting it for poison. She reached for a biscuit, examined it, put it back on the plate. Picked up her teacup instead and held it without drinking. “The Duke of Ashford. Oliver Sinclair. The man whom every unmarried woman in England has spent the last eight Seasons attempting to catch. That Duke of Ashford?”

“I was not aware there was more than one.”

“Do not be clever with me, Louisa Fairchild. I am trying to understand how my dearest friend has agreed to a fraudulent courtship with the most eligible bachelor in the country.”

Louisa pressed her lips together. “Yes. We discussed the terms in Hyde Park this morning.”

“Terms.” Eleanor’s voice climbed half an octave. “You discussed terms. With a duke. In a public park. As though you were negotiating the lease on a shop.”

“He brought a list.”

“He brought a—” Eleanor set the teacup down again. This time, the rattle was deliberate. She pressed both palms flat against her knees, drew a breath that expanded her entire frame, and released it slowly through her nose. Louisa had seen this ritual before. It was what Eleanor did when she was marshalling the full force of her intelligence against an obstacle, and at present, the obstacle appeared to be Louisa.

“Start from the beginning,” Eleanor said. “Everything. Leave nothing out.”

Louisa sighed and folded her arms around herself. “You saw what happened at the Bancroft ball. The coat, the whispers afterward. Everyone assumed the Duke had singled me out.”

“Of course. Half the ballroom spent the rest of the evening discussing whether you had secretly been courting for months. Lady Blackwood looked as though she had swallowed a wasp.”

“After he walked me aside, he mentioned that Frederick was watching us. He said Frederick had spent two years overlooking me, and that the fastest way to change that was to give him a reason to pay attention.” Louisa turned the teacup in her hands. “He proposed an exchange, right there. He plays the devoted suitor. I play the woman being courted. In return, I help shield him from the matchmaking mothers who descend on him at every gathering.”

“He proposed this at the Bancroft ball. While you were wearing his coat.”

Eleanor stared at Louisa, as though she’d gone mad. Which, Louisa supposed, she quite possibly had.