Page 21 of My Deal with the Wrong Duke

“That is correct.”

“The Duke of Ashford. Twenty-nine years old. Master of one of the finest estates in Hampshire. Charming enough to talk his way out of a debtor’s prison, though you would never need to. Handsome enough that Lady Fitzwilliam once walked into a column while watching you cross a ballroom.”

“That was never confirmed.”

“I was standing beside the column, Oliver. I caught her fan.” Sebastian leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his dark eyes bright with amusement that had not yet burned itself out. “And this young lady is not impressed by any of this.”

“She is not.”

“You adore it.”

Oliver’s stomach did a queer, involuntary thing. A drop, or a lurch, the kind of physical response he associated with missing a step on a staircase. He covered it by drinking his whisky. The liquid was smooth, peaty, exactly the sort that usually anchored him.

“I do not adore it. I appreciate it.”

“Semantics.” Sebastian sat back, crossing one leg over the other, his expression settling into that knowing satisfaction Oliver had spent two decades attempting to outmaneuver. “Tell me more about her.”

“There is nothing more to tell. The arrangement is straightforward. We attend events together, I call upon her, we dance. Society draws its conclusions. The mothers retreat. She gains access to the gentleman she wants. Everyone is satisfied.”

“And this gentleman. Who is he?”

“Frederick Langley.”

Sebastian’s eyebrows climbed. “Langley. Respectable fellow. Good family, decent prospects, steady temperament. Utterly without imagination.”

“She admires him.”

“Women admire many things. It does not mean those things will make them happy.”

Oliver turned his glass between his fingers. The whisky caught the light, amber turning to gold, gold to bronze. Through the tall windows, he could see the rooftops of St James’s, the grey London sky pressing low over chimneys that trailed smoke into the afternoon air. A carriage rattled past on the street below.

“What does her happiness have to do with our arrangement?”

Sebastian’s expression shifted. The amusement dimmed, replaced by a watchfulness Oliver recognized. Sebastian wore it rarely, reserved for moments when the teasing gave way to the older, deeper thing beneath their friendship. The thing that had been built during those summers in Sussex, when Sebastian had found Oliver sitting alone in the Hawthorne garden at three in the morning, unable to sleep, unwilling to explain why.

“Nothing,” Sebastian said. “Presumably.”

They sat in silence. The clock marked the seconds. A waiter passed with a silver tray bearing the afternoon post. The ordinary rhythms of the club carried on around them, undisturbed.

“In the park, when we discussed the terms, she argued with every rule. She accused me of treating courtship as a military campaign. She insisted on conditions of her own. She told me my deflections were not the same as answers.”

Sebastian reached for his whisky. Drank slowly. Set it down.

“And when we shook hands,” Oliver continued, aware that he was speaking more than he had intended, aware that his voice had taken on a quality he could not name, “her grip was firmer than I expected. She wore gloves that had been mended at the seam. Very small stitches. The kind of repair that comes from a household where nothing is wasted.”

“Oliver.”

“What?”

Sebastian’s mouth curved. Not a grin, not the theatrical amusement from before. A smaller, quieter expression, edged with fondness. “You have spent more time discussing Miss Fairchild in the last ten minutes than you have discussed any woman in the entire time I have known you.”

The words landed in Oliver’s stomach with the force of a fist.

“That is absurd.”

“It is an observable fact. I keep impeccable records.”

“You keep impeccable gossip.”