Page 12 of The Heiress Gets a Duke
“Please try to smile,” she whispered. A glance at his expression had her amending her request. “Or at least stop scowling. You will frighten the dear girl.”
To her credit, she had her graceful half smile in place. It was the one she pulled out for formal events such as this. It said that she was appropriately interested but elegantly benign about what was happening around her, and that everything was absolutely satisfactory in her world.
“How can you sound so cheerful?” he asked.
“I have faith that it will all work out well. She is a lovely girl who will make you a lovely bride.”
It hardly signified that he did not want a bride, lovely or otherwise. He wanted the basic dignity of being able to provide for his family like any man. Unfortunately, his father had robbed him of that. Now this woman, barely more than a girl, would be responsible for saving them. Perhaps bankrupting the dukedom to see Evan flounder had been part of Father’s plan all along.
“You’ll make it through this. I promise.” His mother patted his cheek and moved ahead to the door a footman was opening. The music of a quartet of stringed instruments wafted out of the drawing room.
A flicker of excitement sparked to life in his belly, only partially dampened by the gloom of the forced marriage ahead of them. Miss Crenshaw was in that room. She had been brave to attend the fight. Braver still for taking what she wanted and kissing him. The fact that she was his intended bride was the only thing that made this situation tolerable for him.
When they approached the door, Lord and Lady Ashcroft crossed to greet them. The room was filled with several people, and his gaze flicked from one to the next trying to find her. Hereford was present, as was an older couple he recognized as his mother’s friends, Viscount Ware, and a middle-aged couple he vaguely recognized as the Crenshaws. They were elegantly dressed, even if Mrs. Crenshaw did appear a bit too ostentatious in her jewelry choices. The large diamonds at her neck and ears were a bit overwhelming taken altogether. An attractive young woman stood beside them, but there was no sign of the woman from the fight.
“How wonderful to see you, Rothschild. Margaret, you are glowing with health.” Lady Ashcroft fawned over his mother, while Evan swallowed his dismay and greeted Lord Ashcroft. The man had been a friend of his father’s but lacked the elder Rothschild’s austerity.
After pleasantries were exchanged, Evan found himself again searching for her. She had to be present. He refused to accept the niggling doubt that said he might be mistaken. A door to the garden had been left ajar, and gaslights flickered beyond the windows to encourage guests to explore it. Perhaps she was out there.
Impatient to see her again to discover if that same spark would be lit between them, he made a move in that direction, but, as if she suspected his intent to leave, his mother took his arm and guided him toward the others.
“Rothschild. Good of you to join us.” The Duke of Hereford had also been a friend of his father’s, though unlike Ashcroft, he tended to view Evan with the same disappointment as Evan’s father. The man inclined his head in the barest echo of a bow.
Evan returned the gesture, hating that he was now Rothschild. In his mind it was his father’s name and not one he had ever planned to associate with himself. “Hereford.”
“Have you met our American friends yet?” asked Ashcroft.
And here it was, the reason they were all gathered. His chest tightened as he looked past Hereford to the couple who were watching him with interest. “I have yet to have the pleasure.”
Hereford turned toward the couple. “May I present Mr. and Mrs. Crenshaw of New York City.”
“Your Grace, it is an honor,” said Crenshaw, a handsome man of medium build who happened to be his future father-in-law.
Evan managed to breathe out and offer a cursory greeting. His mother mumbled something, but Evan barely registered the conversation. Taking Mrs. Crenshaw’s hand out of rote protocol rather than conscious thought, he bent over it. “Madame, it is my sincere pleasure to meet you.”
The woman had dark hair that was only starting to show strands of gray. She was pleasing enough to the eye, but her manner was more forward than his own mother would have found appropriate. She did not lower her gaze as was properwhen he greeted her. Instead, she gave him a smile and stared at him as if she might be gazing upon the second coming of her savior.
“You are even more handsome than your mother suggested, Your Grace,” she said.
He offered her a benign smile and caught a flash of disapproval in his mother’s eye before she managed to hide it. “I am shocked. Typically, there’s no end to her exaggeration.”
The disapproval in his mother’s gaze was back, but this time it was directed at him. Her smile firmly in place, she said to Mrs. Crenshaw, “I am pleased to see you again.”
“This is our Violet.” The woman turned to present the young woman standing beside her.
It took a moment for his brain to catch up with his eyes and ears.Thiswas Violet, but this was indeednotthe woman he had kissed. His heart moved into his stomach where it settled with a nausea-inducing plummet.
Like her mother, she met his gaze without flinching. However, she did not seem quite as enchanted as the older woman. Raising her chin a notch, she appeared to be fighting to keep a hard glint from her eyes.
“Hello, dear,” said his mother. “It is lovely to meet you. Miss Violet, may I present my son, the Duke of Rothschild.”
Evan’s good manners had deserted him in the face of this turn of events. He had been well and truly prepared to meet the woman from the fight, the one who’d challenged him and kissed him. This was not her. This woman was her sister and had been sitting beside her that night at the theater.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He forced the words out. “How are you enjoying your time in London?”
For the barest fraction of a second, her eyes flashed fire, and he found himself expecting—hoping?—that she would dare to lash out. It was clear to him and probably everyone else that she had been informed of his intention and she was not as flattered as another young woman in her position might have been. He was too disappointed still to take offense. Why the devil were they offering the younger sisterto him? Everyone knew that the older daughters were married off first.
With the fire successfully banked, she discreetly withdrew her hand and said, “I am enjoying it very much, thank you. You have a lovely city.”
