Page 12 of A Virgin for the Duke of Depravity
“You must meet my dear friend, Margaret,” Theresa said, pulling Margaret into the conversation. “She is visiting from St. Agatha’s.”
Leo looked her up and down, somehow managing to make even this simple greeting imbued with the implication that he found her attractive. Hehadto find her attractive, or else he would not have made her an offer, would he?
“My Lady,” he said, bowing to her. He took her hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it, just as he had with Theresa.
She tried as hard as she could not to blush, as she was prone to. With a deep, steadying breath, she managed to do it.
Until he complimented her.
“You look more like a lady than a woman of the cloth,” he said.
She supposed this much was true this morning, dressed in one of her friend’s gowns and her hair freshly braided. She had not been out on the streets, running from the Earl.
“I will take that as a compliment,” she said, suppressing a small smile.
“I do not know why you are hiding away in a convent, My Lady,” he added.
Leo peered at her with curiosity, his expression more open than it had been the night before. His eyes seemed warm when he was surrounded by some of his dearest friends.
She was saved from answering by Theresa.
“Actually, none of us know what she is doing at St. Agatha’s. She just burst in one day a few years ago, and she hasn’t stopped causing trouble ever since.” Theresa laughed lightly, and Margaret gave her a genuine smile.
It is true that she had been a thorn in the side of the sisters ever since she arrived. They were always disciplining her, but she would not allow them to break her spirit. Her back was crisscrossed with scars, as was Theresa’s.
“You know those devilish women deserve it,” Margaret said, trying to direct the conversation away from the reason why she joined the convent in the first place.
“You mean to tell us you still have not told your friend why you joined a convent?” Leo asked, his eyebrows raised.
Margaret tried to think of what to say, but the only words that came to mind were her father’s when he was telling her where to go so that she might be spared her mother’s fate.
Do not let him find you, sweetheart. Do you understand me?
But she could not share that with Leo. She had not even told her closest friend what she had been running from. Instead, she gave Leo her most demure smile and batted her eyelashes at him, averting her gaze so that she might better hide the lie.
“I suppose I had nowhere to go,” she said, blinking back tears.
Theresa reached out and patted her hand to comfort her. She knew that Margaret was close to tears, even if Margaret would go to great lengths to protest it. She had seen Margaret cry too many evenings, though she never pried.
“Interesting,” Leo muttered.
She was certain she was the only one who heard him.
He cleared his throat before he changed the subject. “I will not keep you from your breakfast. I have come to invite you to my house party.”
Margaret’s mouth went dry. The moment had arrived to decide what she wanted from Leo, from her life, before she took her vows.
Would she agree to what he asked of her and attend his party, or would she always question what could have happened if she had explored the possibilities he offered?
She did not know the answer yet, but she would have to give one now.
CHAPTER 5
Leo let his words hang in the air between the four of them, not sure how much Margaret had told her friend—ifshe had thought that his offer was worth entertaining, worth sharing. Judging from her stricken expression, he assumed that she had not yet told Theresa or Aaron.
He could live with keeping the Duke of Blackwell in the dark.
“A house party?” Aaron asked. His eyes were slightly wider than usual, the only tell that he was surprised by Leo’s invitation.
