Page 28 of My Deal with the Wrong Duke

“I… am.”

“And yet I sense some hesitation.”

She let out a sigh. “No. None at all. I just… It is nothing.”

His hand brushed against her sleeve. “You can tell me.”

She turned her head toward him, meeting his eyes. “You also find these events not only tedious, but often… tiring, do you not?”

“I do.”

“I suppose I am exhausted by standing against a table, sipping at horrible lemonade, and watching the derision on people’s faces.”

“Alice.” His voice was soft. “If you see derision, turn your gaze to me. I promise that you will never see it in my eyes.”

She flashed him a tired smile, one he returned with more enthusiasm. “I will dance with you as well,” he promised. “You will not stand against a table sipping horrible lemonade all night. I will dance with you twice.”

She laughed and shook her head. “Twice might be too much,” she teased, but he shook his head.

“Twice is just enough.”

The afternoon pressed close. Around them, visitors moved between paintings, their voices rising and falling. A shaft of sunlight caught the gold frame of the small landscape, the painted dog still waiting at its gate.

Louisa looked at Oliver. He looked back at her. The moment held, stretched, filled with the low hum of the gallery.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

“Do not thank me.” His voice was rough at the edges, stripped of its usual polish, almost impatient. “Just stop hiding.”

He offered his arm. She took it. His forearm was warm beneath her fingers, solid, steady. They walked through the gallery without speaking, past oils, watercolors, marble busts, past crowds who glanced at the Duke of Ashford with polite, consuming interest.

Louisa replayed the afternoon. The Dido painting. Lady Fitzwilliam’s sharp approval. Frederick’s surprised admiration. Three encounters, each more astonishing than the last.

But the moment she kept returning to, the one that sat lodged beneath her ribs with a warmth she could not account for, was Oliver crouching beside a small landscape hung too low for anyone to notice, looking up at her and saying: Some things are positioned badly. That does not diminish their worth.

She tightened her grip on his arm. Just slightly. Just enough that he might feel it through the wool of his coat.

He did not look at her. But his pace slowed, half a step, a fraction, the smallest possible adjustment.

Outside, the afternoon sun hit the courtyard of Somerset House. Carriages waited along the Strand. The Season continued around them, relentless, oblivious, concerned only with who had been seen with whom.

Louisa released his arm. Oliver hailed the carriage. They climbed in on opposite sides, the leather seat cool beneath her skirts.

She looked at him across the narrow space of the cab. He was looking out the window, his profile sharp against the passing buildings.

“Oliver,” she said.

He turned. His name in her voice surprised them both.

“Same time Thursday?” she asked softly. “For the Harrington ball.”

“Thursday,” he agreed.

The carriage pulled into traffic. Louisa folded her hands in her lap, her mended gloves pressed together, her pulse beating hard in the hollow of her throat.

Frederick had asked her to dance. The plan was working. Everything was falling precisely into place.

She told herself the warmth in her chest was triumph. She told herself it had everything to do with Frederick’s compliment. Nothing at all to do with the man sitting three feet away, who had looked at her in a gallery full of masterpieces yet seen the painting no one else had bothered to notice.