Page 96 of My Deal with the Wrong Duke

Louisa opened her mouth. She had no answer prepared, which was itself an answer. For two years, every decision had pointed toward Frederick. Every gown chosen, every conversation rehearsed, every evening spent studying his preferences from the safety of shadowed corners. The compass needle had been fixed, and now the magnet was gone, and she did not have the faintest idea which direction to face.

The door opened. Rosaline, the only Fairchild maid, appeared carrying a fresh pot of tea. She was nineteen, freckled, constitutionally incapable of keeping gossip to herself for longer than it took to climb a flight of stairs.

“I… overheard something in the Ton today,” Eleanor said carefully, and Louisa looked up.

“About Frederick?”

Eleanor shook her head. “About… the Duke.”

Louisa’s fingers curled against the arm of the chair. She did not have to ask which duke. “What about him?”

“According to the whispers going about... The Duke is leaving London. Tomorrow, first light. Going back to Hampshire, they say. Having the whole house opened and aired.”

Louisa did not move. She simply stared out in front of her silently.

“Louisa.” Eleanor’s voice was careful.

“He is leaving London.” She said it slowly, her voice soft. “The Season is not over. He never leaves before the Season ends.”

Eleanor set down her biscuit. “No. He does not.”

Of course he was leaving. The arrangement had served its purpose, exceeded it and now nothing remained in London to hold him. Frederick had proposed, the engagement had shattered, the gossip was spreading through every servants’ hall in Mayfair. Oliver had built a stage, helped her stand on it, and walked into the wings before the final act.

She stood and crossed to the window. Rain ran down the glass in thin, wandering lines.

“I suppose that settles it,” she said at last.

“Settles what?”

“Oliver. Whatever I thought I felt, whatever I convinced myself might be returned.” She pressed her thumb against the windowpane. “He… must be so humiliated. The entire city saw me choose Frederick, and it looks like I jilted him. Then I did the same to Frederick.” She laughed sardonically. “And now… Oh, he must not want to be associated with me at all.” She traced a raindrop down the glass. “A man does not flee the city over a woman he cares for. He flees because the obligation is finished and the city holds nothing that interests him.”

Eleanor was quiet for so long that Louisa turned to check whether she was still in the room. She was. She sat in the desk chair, her half-eaten biscuit balanced on her knee, studying Louisa through narrowed eyes, the assessing stare she reserved for moments when she believed Louisa had said a profoundly stupid thing.

“Louisa Fairchild. For a woman who just demonstrated extraordinary courage, you are being remarkably dense.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“A man who feels nothing does not punch a baronet in a corridor.” Eleanor held up one finger. “He does not spend an entire Season teaching a woman to see herself clearly when the arrangement gains him nothing of the kind. He does not arrive late to every ball and search the room for one face before he greets the hostess.” A second finger rose. “I watched him do that. Every single time. He walked through the door, and his eyes went straight to you. At Lady Acker’s. At the Thornbury ball. At Lady Ashworth’s. I was standing beside you, and I saw his face change when he found you in the crowd.”

“That was performance. The arrangement required…”

“Whatever the arrangement required, no man is that good a liar. A man’s eyes do not lie.” Eleanor set the biscuit on the table and leaned forward. “I have been in every ballroom you have been in this Season. I have watched Frederick court you, and I have watched Oliver look at you. He looked at you as though you were the only fixed point in a building that was spinning.”

Louisa turned back to the window. She swallowed twice before she could speak.

“Then why did he leave?” Her voice came out smaller than she intended. “After the kiss. After Dacre. Why did he disappear?”

Eleanor paused. When she spoke again, it was soft. Gentle.

“I do not know him well enough to answer that with any certainty. But I know what I have seen.” She stood and crossed to the window. “A man who does not care simply carries on. He attends the dinners. He dances. He smiles and shrugs and moves through the Season as he always has. Oliver did not carry on. He went from being beside you at every gathering to vanishing from your life entirely, and that kind of withdrawal does not belong to indifference, Louisa. It belongs to a man who cannot trust himself to be in the same room as you without saying what he actually feels.”

“You cannot know that.”

“I cannot prove it. But I know what I saw, and I am telling you that Oliver Sinclair was not performing at all. He cared. And I cannot help but believe he still does.” Eleanor held her gaze. “Whatever is driving him out of London, it is not that he feels nothing for you. I would stake every biscuit in that basket on it.”

Louisa pressed her forehead against the glass. The cold seeped through her skin. Outside, the lamplighter had reached the far corner and was working his way back, his flame steady against the rain.

“He is leaving at first light,” she said hopelessly.