Page 35 of My Deal with the Wrong Duke

“If I humiliate myself, I expect you to intervene.”

“You will not humiliate yourself.”

She turned and walked toward the boathouse before the courage could drain from her.

Oliver sat on the bench. He held her parasol across his knees, the ivory handle warm from her grip, and watched.

The gentleman in the brown coat was perhaps fifty, with a neat beard. Oliver saw the moment Louisa reached them, saw her hesitate for half a second, saw the decision crystallize in the set of her spine.

She spoke. The gentleman turned. His expression moved from surprise to polite interest to genuine engagement within the span of thirty seconds. His wife joined the conversation. Louisa’s hands moved as she spoke, her fingers sketching shapes in the air when her thoughts outpaced her caution.

Five minutes passed. She had forgotten the script. She had forgotten the performance. She was simply talking to another human being, and the ease of it showed in every line of her body.

Eight minutes. The gentleman produced a card from his waistcoat pocket. Louisa accepted it with visible surprise.

Ten minutes. She curtsied and said her farewells. The gentleman bowed. His wife reached out and clasped Louisa’s hand warmly.

Louisa walked back toward the bench. Her pace quickened with every step. By the time she reached him, her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright.

“Sit,” he said.

She sat. She pressed her hands against her knees. Then she turned to him, and the smile that broke across her face was so unguarded that he felt it.

“He is a botanist,” she said. “He has spent the last two years cataloguing every species of fern in the Lake District. His wife thinks he is mad. She told me so while he was explaining the reproductive habits of bracken. He invited me to a lecture at the Linnean Society next Thursday.”

“You held a conversation with a complete stranger for ten minutes and received a social invitation.”

“I held a conversation with a complete stranger for ten minutes and received a social invitation.” She laughed, breathless. “I did not mention the weather once.”

“I am enormously proud of you.”

The words left his mouth before he could smooth them into a lighter shape. They sat between them on the bench, unvarnished, too honest for the occasion. Louisa’s laughter stilled. She looked at him. The flush in her cheeks deepened.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

Her hand rested on the bench between them. His hand held the parasol beside it. The distance between his knuckles and hers was perhaps two inches, and he was overly conscious of it.

He did not close the distance. He did not move his hand. But he did not move it away, either, and when a breeze lifted the loose curl from her temple and pressed it against her cheek, his fingers twitched against the parasol handle with the suppressed instinct to brush it back.

“We should return you to the carriage,” he said. “You have a musicale to prepare for.”

“Must I prepare? You told me not to rehearse.”

“I told you not to prepare a script. You should still dress. Mrs. Alderton’s musicale is not the sort of event one attends in a walking dress.”

She stood. He stood. He returned the parasol. Their fingers brushed during the exchange, the lightest graze of skin against skin, his bare hand against the cotton of her glove. The contact lasted less than a second. She pulled back quickly. He let her.

They walked back along the Serpentine in a silence that had changed shape since the morning, thicker, occupied by thoughts neither of them voiced.

* * *

Mrs. Alderton’s musicale was held in a drawing room too small for its ambitions. Forty guests crowded between gilded chairs, the air heavy with candle smoke. A soprano from the Italian opera sang Handel with impressive force and questionable pitch.

Louisa sat near the back, her hands folded in her lap. The soprano finished. Applause rippled through the room. Guests rose, migrated toward the refreshments. Louisa stood. She smoothed her skirts. She looked for Oliver across the room.

He stood near the far wall, speaking with Lord Alderton and an elderly gentleman whose name she could not recall. His posture was relaxed, his smile easy. He caught her eye across the crowd and raised his glass a fraction of an inch, a private toast, invisible to anyone not watching for it.

She looked away. Her pulse beat against the pearl at her throat.