Page 8 of My Deal with the Wrong Duke

“That is the most ridiculous proposal I have ever received.”

“You are twenty-two and unmarried. I suspect the competition for that title is thin.”

A laugh escaped her, startled and unwilling. She caught it behind her teeth.

“No,” she said firmly. “Absolutely not. I will return your coat, and we will forget this conversation happened.”

“Of course.” He inclined his head, gracious, unbothered. “But Miss Fairchild. Before you decide.”

He angled his body, his hand gesturing subtly.

Frederick Langley stood exactly where he had been. His champagne sat abandoned on the nearest table. His hands hung at his sides, his posture alert. He was watching the alcove with an expression Louisa had never seen on his face in two years of careful observation.

He looked as though he were trying to solve a puzzle he had only just noticed existed.

“Think about it,” Oliver said softly. “That is all I ask.”

She turned back to him. His coat was warm against her shoulders. The cedar scent clung to the wool. Louisa shifted.

Frederick glanced their way again.

“How long would this arrangement last?” she heard herself say.

Oliver’s smile returned, slow, and for the first time all evening, entirely genuine.

“The Season,” he said. “That is all. One Season.”

The music swelled. The candles burned. Somewhere beyond the alcove, Eleanor was certainly looking for her with an expression that would require extensive explanation.

Louisa looked at the duke. She looked at the ballroom. She looked at Frederick Langley, who was still watching, who for the first time in two years was watching.

“I will think about it,” she said.

Oliver’s eyes held hers.

“That,” he said quietly, “is a start.”

CHAPTER 3

“You left the Bancroft ball wearing a duke’s coat, Louisa?”

Her mother stood in the doorway of the breakfast room with the morning post held against her bodice, her reading spectacles perched crookedly on the bridge of her nose.

Louisa set her teacup down. “Good morning, Mama.”

“Mrs. Tyndale writes in considerable detail. The lemonade stain, causing the Duke of Ashford crossing the ballroom to drape his coat around your shoulders.” Her mother sat at the table, poured her chocolate with a hand that was trying very hard to appear casual.

“He was being courteous. A girl collided with me. I had lemonade down my dress. The Duke happened to be standing nearby.”

“Dukes are men, my dear. They tend to be precisely where they intend to be.”

Louisa pressed her thumb into the chip along the rim of her teacup. The toast on her plate had gone cold. The butter had softened into a formless slick. She had been sitting here since half seven, replaying the Bancroft ball frame by frame, prodding at every detail the way one prods at a bruise, unable to stop though it ached.

“It meant nothing, Mama.”

“If you say so, dear.” Her mother replaced her spectacles, returned to the post, retreated behind the safe barricade of Mrs. Tyndale’s elaborate penmanship.

Louisa drank her cold tea.