Page 46 of A Duke's Temptation Poetess
“I agree,” she said.
The dance concluded, and Clarissa knew that it would be improper to dance a third time with the Earl of Creshire. She curtsied. “Thank you for the dance.”
He bowed. “The pleasure was entirely mine, my Lady.”
Clarissa glanced around her, searching for the Duke of Hartingdale. When she found him, he appeared to be in deep conversation with Lord Roswood. Clarissa felt a sudden tightness in her chest. Her heartbeat seemed to quicken.
A surge of disappointment welled within her, threatening to burst over. Well, she supposed there would be other dances, and His Grace had not purposefully denied her a dance. It seemed that he just had some business to attend to with his brother-in-law. She could hardly fault him for that.
***
“Your mother wassodelighted to be invited to the Pump Room,” Jane said, grinning.
Clarissa sighed and shook her head. It was late in the evening, and she and Jane were seated together in Jane’s bedchamber, discussing the day’s events.
Clarissa felt something like fond exasperation as she remembered how eagerly her mother had answered Lady Matilda’s invitation. It had been almost unseemly, and although Jane clearly found the situation amusing, Clarissa knew what it really was. Her mother doubtlessly thought this was another opportunity for Clarissa to charm the Duke of Hartingdale.
Hopefully, her mother would not suggest she be caught in acompromising positionwith His Grace. Clarissa was becoming increasingly tired of the suggestion and of the arguments which often followed it.
“But I cannot say that I am displeased,” Jane said. “I am quite glad that Lady Matilda invited my me as well.”
“She is very generous.”
Jane bit her lip, her eyes darting anxiously to Clarissa. “I know that you have made a study of love,” Jane said.
Clarissa laughed. “Awhat?”
“Without your poetry,” Jane clarified. “You write often of love, which I consider to be a study. A treatise of sorts.”
Clarissa arched an eyebrow. She had never thought of herself asstudyinglove, but perhaps that was the best word for thoroughly contemplating a given subject.
“I do not know if I necessarily agree with you,” Clarissa replied, “but I also suppose that what you say is true enough. The sentiment of it, if not the wording. What is your point?”
Jane took a deep breath and glanced around her, as if she anticipated that they might have an audience. “Do you believe in love at first sight?” Clarissa’s cousin asked, her eyes wide and earnest. “Do you think that love truly exists in our lives like it does in all the stories?”
Clarissa blinked at her, at first taken aback by the unexpected question. Then she remembered the way that Lord Watford had looked at Jane and how they had conversed with one another. Jane was Lord Watford’s first dance partner, too. Clarissa might have dismissed that simply as a gentleman being polite and offering his time to a young lady, but from the expression on her cousin’s face, Clarissa strongly suspected that Jane had interpreted the gesture very differently.
“Jane, is this about Lord Watford?” Clarissa asked carefully.
Jane sighed longingly and fell back against the cushions of the settee. “He is dreadfully handsome, and did you hear the way he spoke to me? He seemed so genuinely invested in everything he said. I have never met a man who shared my passion for botany so ardently.”
Clarissa bit her lip. “He did seem very invested in his conversation with you.”
“And he was a gifted dancer,” Jane said. “I do not think I have ever enjoyed dancing a set as much as I did with Lord Watford.”
“He is a close friend of His Grace’s,” Clarissa said hesitantly.
From what Clarissa knew of rakes, they tended to befriend one another and associate together often. She felt guilty for thinking that, though, for His Grace seemed…
Well, Clarissa could not quite put to words what impression he gave her. She felt as if she ought to dismiss him as a rake, but that was not entirely fair. There was no denying that he gazed at her with raw and fierce attraction sometimes.
She could read it in his eyes, and her own body grew hot when she thought about his intense stare. He had also recommended that she read that scandalous author, and yet she found that she could not—or perhaps did not wish to—dismiss him as only a rake.
“I do not know much about the Duke of Hartingdale,” Jane said, “but he seems pleasant enough. Lady Matilda took care of him when he was a boy, did she not?”
“She did,” Clarissa said.
“Well, he cannot be so bad, then. How could a boy reared by such a lovely and generous woman be terrible?”
