Page 16 of A Spinster for the Cold Duke

Henry met Everett’s gaze across the scarred wooden table. Too much history sat between them. He looked away first.

“Perhaps,” Everett said quietly, “it’s time you considered that not all women are?—”

“Don’t.” Henry’s voice cut through the tavern’s ambient noise. “Whatever you’re about to say, don’t.”

Everett raised his hands in surrender, though his expression remained thoughtful. “Very well. But… avoiding half the human race isn’t living, my friend. It’s merely existing.”

Henry rose abruptly and tossed coins onto the table with more force than necessary. “I should return to Celia. She requires supervision to ensure she doesn’t disappear again.”

“Of course,” Everett agreed mildly, watching as Henry shrugged into his coat. “Though I suspect your daughter isn’t the only one who might benefit from a bit more supervision.”

Henry paused at the door with his hand on the worn brass handle. “Meaning?”

“Meaning that the most dangerous rebellions often begin when we least expect them.” Everett’s smile was full of knowing and pity. “Even in the most controlled households.”

Without another word, Henry stepped into the gathering dusk, leaving behind the tavern and his friend’s too-perceptive observations.

As he mounted his horse and turned toward Marchwood Hall, he found he couldn’t quite escape the memory of blue eyes blazing with passion, or the uncomfortable realization that Miss Lytton had managed to unsettle him in ways he’d thought himself long past feeling.

“Truly, Joanna, you cannot imagine the sheer audacity of the man,” Annabelle declared while pouring tea with perhaps more vigor than the delicate porcelain warranted. “He stands there pronouncing judgment as though appointed by God Himself to determine what constitutes proper female behavior.”

The late afternoon sun cast a honeyed glow across Oakley Hall’s garden, where Annabelle had arranged for tea with her dear friend, Lady Joanna Godric, the Marchioness of Knightley.

It was rather unfortunate that Emma was not yet here. Annabelle was very certain Emma would have had a great many things to say about it.

Joanna adjusted her spectacles while her lips quirked with amusement.

“And yet you’ve mentioned this fearsome duke no less than seven times in the past quarter-hour,” Joanna observed, accepting her cup with a knowing glance. “One might almost suspect he’s made quite an impression.”

“An impression of insufferable arrogance, perhaps,” Annabelle retorted, though a betraying heat crept unbidden to her cheeks.

She decided it was due to a sudden drop in the temperature of the room. Nothing more.

“The way he looks at me is so infuriating! As though I were some dangerous revolutionary intent on corrupting the minds of innocent young ladies with radical notions like independent thought.”

“Heaven forbid,” Joanna murmured dryly as she took a sip of her tea. “I’m rather curious to meet this paragon of propriety who’s managed to ruffle your composure so thoroughly.”

Annabelle’s grandmother, who had been quietly observing their exchange, set down her teacup with quiet flair.

“You may satisfy your curiosity sooner than expected, my dear,” she remarked, her gaze shifting to the garden path. “Unless I’m mistaken, that is the Duke of Marchwood and Lady Celia approaching now.”

Annabelle’s head snapped up immediately. Her pulse quickened traitorously as she followed her grandmother’s gaze.

Indeed, the imposing figure of the duke strode along the garden path with his daughter at his side. Even at this distance, the stark contrast between them was evident: the girl almost vibrating with energy while her father maintained the rigid control that seemed as much a part of him as his imposing height.

Annabelle couldn’t help that needling curiosity as to what kind of storm brewed within that fortress of skin and bone. Surely, there was no being who could be so… so…proper.

“What extraordinary timing,” Annabelle muttered, hastily smoothing her skirts. “Did you arrange this, Grandmama?”

“I merely suggested we might take tea in the garden today,” Lady Oakley replied with the serenity of a chess master who had anticipated her opponent’s move several plays in advance. “The weather is so fine, after all.”

Before Annabelle could formulate a suitably cutting response, the Duke and his daughter reached their little gathering.

Up close, the Duke’s broad shoulders filled her view. His coat fit him like a second skin. His face was hard and unyielding, except for those striking steel-colored eyes that seemed to see right through her.

And Annabelle didn’t like how much she hoped those eyes would stay locked on her.

“Lady Oakley,” he acknowledged with a precise bow. “I trust we’re not interrupting.”

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