Page 71 of My Deal with the Wrong Duke

“I do not.”

“Magnificent animal. Won at Epsom twice. Ashton paid four hundred guineas, which I told him was excessive, though of course one cannot put a price on bloodline.”

“Of course not.”

She sipped the lemonade. “Does he intend to race the colt this Season?”

Frederick’s face brightened. “He does, in fact. At Ascot, if the animal is ready. The trainer is cautious, but Ashton has never been a patient man.”

“And you? Would you have purchased him?”

“Not at that price. Three hundred, perhaps. I told Ashton as much, but he is sentimental about Dorimant’s line.” Frederick finished his wine. “You are very easy to talk to, Louisa. Most young ladies glaze over entirely when I mention horses.”

“I am fascinated by horses,” she said, and smiled, and hated herself a little for how easily it came.

Frederick’s name appeared three times on her card. Oliver’s did not appear at all.

Eleanor found her beside the cloakroom at half past eleven. The crowd had thinned. The orchestra was playing the final set, and the remaining dancers moved through the figures with the loosened posture of people who had stopped performing for the evening.

“Your mother’s carriage is waiting,” Eleanor said. She studied Louisa’s face in the candlelight of the corridor. “You look tired.”

“I am tired.”

“You have been tired since the cotillion. You have also been drinking warm lemonade and discussing horses with a man who does not know you dislike horses.”

“I do not dislike horses.”

“You are terrified of horses, Louisa. I was the one next to you when you were thrown off a mare years ago; you cannot lie to me.”

Louisa pursed her lips. With a sigh, she took her shawl from the attendant. She wrapped it around her shoulders and did not answer.

They walked to the carriage together. The night air was cooler than the ballroom, and the street was busy with departing guests, wheels and hooves and the voices of coachmen calling to one another above the noise. Eleanor climbed in first. Louisa followed. The door closed, and the carriage pulled forward into the line of traffic moving south along the square.

“He used my Christian name tonight,” Louisa said. “During the cotillion.”

“I heard.”

“He asked about marriage. Children. What sort of life I hoped for.”

Eleanor was quiet for a moment. “And what did you tell him?”

“That I wanted to be a partner. That I wanted to be useful, not decorative.”

“Good. And what did he say?”

“He said I was sensible. He said I would not find the household duties burdensome.”

The carriage swayed over a rut. A lamp outside the window threw a bar of light across Eleanor’s face, then passed.

“Eleanor.”

“Yes.”

“He told me what he expected. The household, the hosting, the obligations. He listed them. And then he told me I was capable.”

“You are capable.”

“He said it the way one approves of a well-built shelf.”