Page 52 of My Deal with the Wrong Duke

“And yet you claimed the final waltz with Miss Fairchild. Which, for a tired man, seems an unusual expenditure of energy.”

“It was the only dance remaining on her card.”

“Because you arrived late.”

“I was detained.”

“You were in the corridor for five minutes adjusting your cravat. I saw you through the door.”

Oliver set the port glass beside the claret glass on the marble ledge. Two empty glasses. He straightened his cuffs.

“Your cravat was flawless. It is always flawless. You could tie a cravat in your sleep. You once tied a cravat during an earthquake in Naples without dropping the mirror.” Sebastian’s voice was mild, conversational, carrying the easy register he employed when he was about to say precisely the thing Oliver least wanted to hear. “What I find interesting is that you spent five minutes preparing yourself to enter a ballroom you have entered a hundred times before, as though tonight required more armor than usual.”

“You are reading too much into things.”

“I could not disagree more.” Sebastian paused. He studied Oliver’s profile. “Are you going to tell me what is bothering you, or shall I guess?”

“Nothing is bothering me.”

“Excellent. Then you will not mind that Frederick is currently describing his family’s rose garden in Kent to Miss Fairchild with the earnest devotion of someone planning his proposal speech.”

Oliver’s hand twitched toward his empty glass. He stopped it. He folded his arms.

“I am delighted for them,” he said.

“You look delighted. You look precisely as delighted as a man watching his dentist approach with pliers.”

“Sebastian.”

“Oliver.”

They stood in silence. The supper room was emptying around them, guests drifting back toward the ballroom. The orchestra had started the next set, its melody faint through the doorway. Frederick stood, offering Louisa his arm. She took it. They walked through the doorway together, her blue silk catching the candlelight as she passed.

She glanced over her shoulder. Her eyes swept the room. They found Oliver. She held his gaze for a heartbeat, her expression uncertain, asking a question he could not answer from across twenty feet of polished marble.

He lifted his hand. A brief wave. Casual. She smiled. She turned away. She disappeared through the door.

Oliver pushed himself off the paneling. He crossed to the window. The garden below Lady Acker’s supper room was dark except for a row of lanterns strung between the lime trees, their glow smudged by the mist that had crept up from the river.

“The arrangement is working,” he said to the window. “Frederick is attentive. Louisa is gaining confidence. Lord Ashton’s wife has invited her to Wiltshire. Every piece is moving into position.”

“I did not ask whether the arrangement was working.”

“Then what are you asking?”

Sebastian was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, the teasing had left his voice.

“I am asking whether you are going to spend the next fortnight in Wiltshire watching Frederick Langley court a woman you cannot stop looking at, and I am asking whether you have considered what that will cost you.”

“I am not going to Wiltshire.”

“You were invited.”

“I will decline.”

Sebastian’s eyebrows rose. “The Duke of Ashford, who has never once declined an invitation from Lord Ashton, is suddenly unavailable for a fortnight in the country during the height of summer.”

“I have estate business.”