What I Did For a Duke (12 page)

Funny how the spot where the duke’s finger touched her was suddenly the locus of the universe for three people.

“Your hand is unconscionably soft, Miss Eversea,” he murmured.

Oh.

And then he took his fingers away.

Her eyes widened. She couldn’t lift her head just yet.

The shock of the stealthy compliment spread slowly through her, the way sherry did when bolted quickly. She flicked her eyes up at him. Made a quick frown of disapproval. Then inhaled to steady her nerves.

She could have sworn that spot where he’d touched her hummed with portent. Like he’d drawn the sword from the stone rather than lift his fingers.

She got her head up again at last and looked at him.

He
was new, too.

“Now laugh again,” the duke murmured. “Make it convincing. And for God’s sake, don’t look at
him
when you do it. Look at me. Laugh.
Laugh
,” he hissed when it seemed her dumbstruck stare was permanent.

Genevieve gave her head a toss. “Ahhahahaha!”

He rolled his eyes. “Lovely molars,” the duke murmured dryly. “Good thing you were born into money, for you would starve treading the boards. Now wait, and look at me while you do.”

She did as commanded, caught up in the momentum of following his orders.

And he smiled.

It began lazily, and within seconds was as intimate and sensual and enveloping as a mink wrap. She felt that smile everywhere on the surface of her skin. All the little hairs on the back of her neck stood alertly, as though he’d brushed his fingers there, or as though they anticipated that he might. She felt . . . ensnared. And woefully . . .
thrilled
. And once again very, very out of her depth.

Until she reminded herself the smile was for effect. That sobered her.

Good God. For whom does he
usually
produce this smile?

Out of the corner of her eyes she saw Harry restively shift his feet. Like a horse nagged by flies. He leaned his weight on his cricket bat, twisting it into the ground thoughtfully. He was in fact watching Genevieve and the duke with a fixity of expression she could truthfully say she’d never before seen him wear.

His pale blue eyes were decidedly . . . flinty. His jaw, which was square, was set resolutely.

Well.

Was it jealousy? Protectiveness? Usually Harry found the world very accommodating. It provided him with joy and diversion and comfort and plenty of devoted, worshipful friends—like her—and very soon a
wife
. He’d always taken for granted Genevieve’s regard, and why shouldn’t he?

But how would Harry behave if his world behaved unexpectedly?

A diabolical possibility surged through Genevieve almost painfully, like blood rushing back into a sleeping limb.

“How did you know?” she whispered.

“He looks at you every time you laugh. Every. Time. He’s been showing off this entire time, and I do believe it’s on your behalf. And he noticed the last time I touched you,” he said simply. “I noticed, even if you didn’t. And right now it looks like two men would like to hurl cricket balls at me.”

He meant Ian, too, who was watching the two of them with ill-disguised suspicion.

It
was
almost funny.

“It does rather, doesn’t it?”

“You sound pleased, Miss Eversea. Oh, and by the way, if you stare at them now, it ruins everything you just accomplished. So look at me again, and try for something akin to fondness in your expression. Another of those fetching blushes wouldn’t go amiss. Or if that’s too distasteful, look off picturesquely into the middle distance.”

But she was tired of taking direction from him. She rebelled and wrapped her arms around her knees, then rested her cheek upon them so she wouldn’t have to look at anyone at all for a moment.

The muslin of her dress felt deliciously cool, which is when she realized her cheeks were almost feverishly hot. She’d been taking an unaccustomed emotional buffeting all afternoon. It was taking its toll upon her temperature. Blushes, flushes, and blanches.

Your hand is unconscionably soft.

You have an excellent mouth.

Compliments so specific, bold, and singular she scarcely held them in her thoughts for one second without blushing. She wanted to both savor and recoil from them.

She wished Harry had said them to her.

She contemplated whether she
was
in fact pleased to make Harry jealous. She breathed in, testing, and discovered instead of the jagged misery she’d inhaled for days she felt . . .
revived
.

The duke’s voice came to her again. His voice was very like him, she thought, from the muslin safety of her knees where she could hear it without watching him. It had smoky edges and the resonance of a stringed instrument. It thrummed inside her. She wouldn’t have minded at all listening to him recite poetry or something more pleasant than—

“So, Miss Eversea, are you just going to
allow
him to propose to your friend?”

—than that.

“I should do what instead? Confess my abiding love?” This was muffled and irritable, as she’d said it to her knee. Her tone said everything about the absurdity of
that
notion.

“
Doesn’t
he love you? Didn’t you just say it was always implied? If this is true, what then is the impediment? Certainly not your family or fortune. Perhaps the problem is
his
family or fortune?”

She was pensive. “I believe, though I’m not certain, he feels a certain . . . discomfiture over the fact that he hasn’t an estate of his own yet, and won’t until he inherits. And his income is considerably more modest than many other young men. He’s hardly impoverished. And I don’t mind at all that he isn’t wealthy. I can’t imagine that he believes that I do. Though my parents of a certainty do. But I’m simply guessing.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t know his own mind,” the duke suggested. “Young men seldom do.”

Was he trying to
comfort
her with that lofty bit of condescension?

“Do you speak from experience, Lord Moncrieffe?”

“It can only be from experience, given how long it’s been since I was young.”

She smiled then, albeit in a small way. If he was fishing for a compliment she wasn’t going to deliver one. He
wasn’t
young. He was nearly
forty
.

“Look at me again, Miss Eversea, if you would be so kind.”

She sighed gustily again, and lifted her head up with theatrical reluctance. It was strangely not unpleasant to see him again.
What color
are
his eyes?
she wondered. She was a lover of detail but she’d been so determined to shed him that she hadn’t wanted to collect details about him. His eyes were dark, but not brown. He’d taken off his hat and his hair lifted in the breeze, and she looked, really looked this time, and it was glossy, and well . . . very well, not only black. The sun struck sparks of bronze from it. The sun was behind him now, and his features were indistinct, and somehow this made it a little easier to speak to him. His miles of legs were folded up before him.

“I’m not suggesting you confess your undying love for him to his face. Quite the opposite. I’m suggesting you make him aware of his for
you
. He is a man, after all, and this will appeal to his pride and sense of the romantic. Young men like him are positively mad for romantic drama. Or perhaps you can make him
believe
his undying devotion is to you and not to your friend, which amounts to about the same thing. Young men are suggestible. I don’t see that this one is exceptional.”

She was instantly and passionately indignant. “Not
exceptional
? But you don’t know him! He’s kind and clever and his character is absolutely
unassailable
and he once gave me a hound pup for my birthday, though Papa made me give it back—”

He held up both hands defensively. “Do not
pelt
me with superlatives regarding Lord Harry, dear God, I beg of you. I’m certain he could walk from here to America upon the water. And kiss your
hand
all he likes.” He thought this was very funny, clearly, and she scowled at him. “I meant, he’s no different from other young men in that, no matter how clever he may be, he simply may not know his own mind and heart. Perhaps he simply needs someone to show his mind
to
him. It’s not a character flaw to be
young
. Well, not usually, anyhow.” He sent a dark and speaking look in the direction of Ian, lest she forget. “But perhaps you should set out to do something about it before he does something rash and irreversibly tragic like propose to your friend. Because, Miss Eversea, you are
kind
, and you would step away then and allow them their happiness at the expense of yours, regardless of whether or not it’s
right
. St. Genevieve, the Martyr.”

He’d managed to make “kind” sound like a character flaw. And St. Genevieve! Inwardly, she was anything but! Her body clenched with indignation.

Someone
in her family needed to possess a modicum of restraint; it fell to her.

But he was correct. A choice faced her, a diabolical one. Where she liked life to be orderly and quiet, and she would do nothing rather than cause a stir.

“And why would
you
want to assist me?”

“Because now that the option of seducing and abandoning you no longer remains as you have caught me out—”

How easily he said the word “seducing.” Here she was in danger of yet another temperature change.

“—I shall need some other way to amuse myself for the duration of the visit. And I would take great pleasure in tormenting your brother by leaving him wondering at how I intend to wreak vengeance upon him. Perhaps you’ll be practical enough to agree with me that he would benefit from a little . . . humbling uncertainty.”

“But you like vengeance so
very
much,” she pointed out with mock solicitousness. “And I should hate to deprive you of it. You could give all of that up for me?”

This made him smile, slowly, with a pure, dazzling, wicked delight that strangely infected
her
with delight.

“You’re so
thoughtful
,” he said, with hushed fervor.

She gave a little shout of surprised laughter.

And then huffed out a breath to help her think.

She bit her lip. She tapped her foot. She stared at him.

He stared back. He gave a nonchalant shrug of one shoulder.

What do you have to lose, Miss Eversea?

Her eyes restlessly wandered the familiar lawn, which had always been the setting for play not tragicomedy, and her eyes lit upon Millicent and Olivia. She found no solace there, no clarity or simplicity. Her heart used to leap just a little when she saw either of them, like a dog giving a tail thump when a friend entered a room. But Millicent’s complexion was flushed a golden peach from the walk and she was a little disheveled, her apron caught up in one hand, ringlets glued to her cheeks, all of which no doubt charmed Harry and made him feel
protective
. Her brown eyes were merry; her head was cocked in exaggerated interest. Olivia looked wryly amused by something Millicent was saying. But then Olivia rarely
lost
herself in merriment anymore. She had a marvelously abandoned laugh, her sister, and a wicked, wicked way with humor, but bloody Lyon Redmond had taken it with him when he’d disappeared. Left her to pour passion into causes.

And perhaps this was her fate if she simply
allowed
Harry to propose to Millicent. She’d turn into Olivia. Her whole life muffled, everything she saw and felt, covered over in a soft film of gray, like ash sprinkled over burned ruins.

Reflexively, she glanced toward Harry again, but Millicent was now blocking her view. She was striding over to her with her easy, graceful gait, her apron extended out before her, her bonnet bouncing on ribbons behind her.

She plumped cheerfully down next to Genevieve, and Genevieve instantly reached out and gently resettled her friend’s bonnet atop her head and straightened it.

“Thank you,” Millicent said absently, as though they’d done this a dozen times before—which they had, in fact, because Millicent’s bonnet was forever slipping from her, something to do with laughing too hard and too often. And then she allowed Genevieve to help her pick out the knot before she drew out the ribbons and retied them neatly beneath her chin so she was shaded once again.

When they looked up the duke was watching all of this. Well, watching
her
. He was absolutely still again and his expression was disconcerting. Almost . . . well, she might have said “yearning,” but that struck her as silly. It could have something to do with the slant of autumn light. And then he turned again, and shaded his eyes, surveying the Eversea land dispassionately. Perhaps calculating how many times over it would fit into
his
land.

Although between them, the Everseas and Redmonds owned a good portion of Sussex.

What haunted the duke besides being cuckolded? Was
no one
here at peace?

The thought momentarily darkly amused her: Harry was on pins and needles waiting to propose to Millicent, Ian was terrified of the unpredictable duke and pretending not to be, Olivia was Olivia, bereft of Lyon and filled with plans to save the world from itself, and as for herself, she was slowly dying of heartbreak and stretched on tenterhooks awaiting the death knell of her hope. And now being tormented by a duke.

And Millicent was oblivious to all of it and as happy as usual.

Genevieve could see again the unique appeal of that particular quality now. How very soothing it must be in its innocence and light. When one is satisfied with how the world
appears
, there is no need to look any deeper or farther. Peeking below the surface of things, one often discovers things one would rather not see, whether it is worms tilled up by the plow or wads of dust beneath a bed.