Page 33 of My Deal with the Wrong Duke

She touched the knuckle where his thumb had been.

Frederick Langley chose that moment to cross the floor toward her. He looked away.

CHAPTER 10

“Iassumed you would start with gowns.”

Oliver stopped walking. The gravel path curved beneath a canopy of elms whose leaves had thickened into the deep, settled green of a London June. Hyde Park hummed with the afternoon’s business: nursemaids along the Serpentine, two boys chasing a terrier through the grass, gentlemen on horseback whose laughter carried over the water.

“Gowns,” he repeated.

“Or hair. Deportment. How to flutter a fan without looking as though I am trying to cool soup.” Louisa kept her parasol tilted against the sun, its shadow cutting a pale arc across the bodice of her walking dress. “Eleanor said you would begin with fashion. She has a theory that all gentlemen believe women’s difficulties can be traced to an insufficiently low neckline.”

“Eleanor has met the wrong gentlemen.”

“Eleanor has met all the gentlemen. That is precisely her complaint.”

He studied her. She walked with her chin raised, her pace brisk, her free hand gathered in the folds of her skirt. She looked prepared. She looked as though she had rehearsed this walk the way she rehearsed conversations.

“I am not going to teach you about gowns,” he said.

“Then what, exactly, are we doing in Hyde Park?”

“Learning to speak.”

“I can speak. I have been speaking for twenty-two years.”

“You have been speaking carefully for twenty-two years. There is a difference.” He clasped his hands behind his back. A warm breeze moved through the elms. Somewhere near the water, a child shrieked with the uncomplicated joy of someone who had never once worried about saying the wrong thing at dinner. “Tell me what happens when you approach Frederick at a gathering.”

Louisa’s grip on the parasol tightened. “I have told you.”

“Tell me again. From the beginning. Walk me through it.”

She exhaled. A strand of hair had escaped her bonnet, curling against her temple in the heat. She did not push it away.

“I see him across the room. I decide to approach. I rehearse three topics in my head. I cross the room. By the time I reach him, I have discarded two because they sound foolish. I open my mouth. The remaining topic comes out wrong. He smiles politely. I panic. I say the weather sentence. He agrees. I say the weather sentence again. He excuses himself.”

Oliver nodded slowly. “And how long does this take?”

“Four minutes. Sometimes five, if there is a pause I cannot fill.”

“Four minutes,” he repeated. “During which you have asked him exactly zero questions and allowed him to learn exactly nothing about you.”

She turned sharply. The parasol swung with her, its shadow sweeping across his waistcoat.

“That is not fair.”

“It is accurate. You spend every conversation performing for Frederick rather than speaking with him. You are so occupied preparing your next sentence that you forget the purpose of the current one.”

“The purpose of conversation is to avoid humiliating silence.”

“The purpose of conversation is to make the other person feel interesting.” He slowed his pace. A pair of ladies passed them, both glancing at Oliver with reflexive curiosity. He smiled. They smiled back. He returned his attention to Louisa. “Most people enjoy talking about themselves. If you ask a man about his interests, his opinions, his recent endeavors, he will talk for a quarter of an hour without requiring any contribution beyond the occasional thoughtful question. At the end of it, he will walk away convinced that you are the most captivating woman he has ever met.”

“Because I listened?”

“Because you made him feel heard. Which is rarer than you imagine.”

She was quiet for several steps. The gravel crunched beneath their shoes.