Page 9 of The Duke I Wished For
He blinked back his surprise even as his mouth fell open and then he snapped it shut again. Had she not accosted him specifically to attempt to garner his interest?
Was she toying with him? Attempting to make him chase her? Had she found him unsuitable in some way? Or was she just as silly as he’d first assumed?
The last thought made his mouth snap shut once again. “Madame, I must insist that we end this foolish discussion at once. I’ve no time for such?—”
“Daffodil!” This time a male voice cut off his words before he could finish his scathing remark. Or what he’d intended to be a scathing remark.
An older and distinguished-looking man approached, gray at his temples but his back still straight and tall.
“Yes, Papa?”
“Go and see your mother. Quickly. We’ll be leaving soon and she won’t rest until her goal is accomplished.”
Blake watched Daffodil deflate, the air rushing from her lungs even as her shoulders hunched forward. “Yes, Papa.”
She gave Blake a nod, her gaze flitting to his. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”
He wasn’t sure he could say the same, but he was certain of one thing. Their meeting had been interesting. “Enjoy your evening.”
Her chin dipped, her gaze casting down causing her eyelashes to flutter on her cheeks. “Thank you.”
But the words rang with some genuine sentiment as though she weren’t just thanking him for exchanging pleasantries but sincerely grateful for something.
His brow furrowed as he attempted to decide what that might be.
But before he could ask, she slipped away. Blake watched her slowly cross the room, her hands clasped together as she approached an older woman and a weaselly-looking man with hungry eyes that seemed to devour Daffodil.
For some reason, the man’s attention toward Daffodil irritated him. He didn’t like the way he looked at her, not that it was his business.
In fact, after her last comments, he knew she was wrong for him in every way possible. He started recounting the list:
Not accomplished.
Her manners were atrocious.
Her temperament was all wrong.
And…
“Daffodil looks a fair bit like her mother did at her age,” her father said, and Blake ripped his gaze from Daffodil, focusing on the man he’d nearly forgotten was there.
“Does she?”
“Lovely, isn’t she?” The other man gave him an almost sad smile as he shook his head, as if to clear his words. “Forgive me, I’m the Earl of Clearwater. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Earl? Well, Blake could say this. Daffodil had the correct lineage. “The Duke of Hathshire. Pleased to make yours.”
The other man’s brows lifted. “Hathshire? We don’t see you in town all that often.”
He shook his head. As Blake was not interested in the man’s daughter, he thought better of sharing that he was here on a wife hunt. But as if to belie his words, he found his eyes straying toward Daffodil once again. “I don’t come often, only when it’s required.”
“Some matter of Parliament?”
“Hmm,” he answered, noting the way the weasel who spoke to Daffodil loomed over her. She appeared to shrink in response, growing smaller in his shadow. Blake’s fist clenched.
“Of course not, they’ve closed for summer, have they not?”
Blake forced himself to attend the man in front of him. What was he getting at? “And you? Why haven’t you retired to the country before the heat of summer sets in?”
