Page 32 of Her Duke Next Door
“Good,” he answered, fixing his cravat behind her in the mirror. His valet must have had a terrifically hard job of making Hugh Yore look presentable. His hair was thinning out, barely able to be scraped back into a tail, and his bulging neck was squashed into a high-collared shirt. “I would not want to disappoint our hosts by being late.”
“We shall not be late,” she assured him. “I shall say goodbye to Eloise before we depart.”
“We really ought to leave, Mary,” he said sternly.
Mary glared at him. “I will not leave without saying goodbye to my daughter, Hugh.”
He waved her off, stalking moodily out of the room. “I will wait in the lobby. One minute, no longer.”
As soon as he was gone, Mary rushed to Eloise’s bedroom. She opened the door, where Eloise was sitting with her governess. Her easel stood by the window, ignored.
“You still did not want to paint, Eloise?” Mary asked.
Eloise sniffed, turning her head away from her. “No.”
Ah. This was the new treatment. Eloise had half-heartedly taken to honoring her threat of not talking to Mary, thinking it was her fault that they had moved away from the countryside.
“What about your embroidery? We tried yesterday but perhaps tomorrow we can sit on the terrace outside and embroider together.”
“Maybe,” Eloise answered grumpily. “Maybe we can visit Katie.”
Mary heard a clearing of a throat and was reminded of Hugh waiting downstairs. “Let’s discuss it another time, shall we?”
“How about we play with your dolls again, Lady Eloise?” Bernie asked with a small smile. Sadly, Eloise nodded as she scooped up her dolls and moved further away from Mary. She wanted to go to her daughter, to provide more comfort, but Hugh’s presence was a weight on her shoulders, pulling her where she had to go to keep them both safe.
“I will be back later tonight,” Mary said softly. “Do not stay up too late, yes?”
Eloise did not answer, and Mary’s heart broke further as she left her room, enduring one last sympathetic look from Bernie.
Hugh awaited her downstairs, the carriage door already open. “Shall we?”
* * *
“Tell me, how are you finding it, being back in London’s society again?” Hugh asked her as they approached the house of the ball that night.
“Quite fine,” she answered dismissively.Wretched, she thought.It is absolutely wretched.
“You must miss the countryside, no?”
“No,” she lied. She did not need to divulge her secret peaceful pleasures to him. “I am handling the Ton well.”
Hugh laughed as though he did not believe her and squeezed her hand. Mary’s eyes stayed ahead, her chin lifted, as he walked with her into the residence of their hosts. Guests milled about in beautiful gowns and tailcoats, suitors, and debutantes all eyeing each other up, and Mary almost missed those days.
She blushed as a suitor brushed against a young woman, whispering in her ear in a small show of affection. The two broke away from their respective groups and were in front of Mary and Hugh as they greeted their guests and walked into the ballroom.
As she had come to be quite used to, gazes slid to her, and the quiet whispers picked up as they discussed Mary’s life. Anne had assured her that the rumors of her husband’s scandal had died down but it seemed that seeing Mary once again restarted them. And at the side of her husband’s uncle, no less.
“Champagne, darling?” Hugh asked. She hated every utterance of affection he gave her through nicknames. They crawled down her spine.
“That would be lovely,” she answered, and Hugh picked up two flutes for them to sip at on the outskirts.
As the partygoers’ eyes glanced over them, Mary tried not to feel as though she was being watched. A group of women squealed and talked loudly, the center of every suitor’s attention. Even Hugh looked on at them but he seemed to leer at every woman who passed.
What would Dominique be like in a situation like this? She thought traitorously to herself. Then she shook her head, trying to clear the thought. She did not need to think about the Duke of Livingston!
“You look quite distracted, Mary,” Hugh said.
“Not at all,” she replied, although she was.
