My Last Duchess, стр. 5
Even as a child, Maddie had always bluntly demanded whatever she wanted. Ophelia wouldn’t be surprised if Maddie strode rightup to the man and suggested a tryst.
They were almost at the door, so Ophelia glanced at the duke again.
He was looking at her.
Not at Maddie.
At her.
Blood rushed into her cheeks, and she barely caught herself before she tripped again. She was a widow, the relict of Sir Peter Astley. A mother. Not the sort of woman who welcomed a man’s eyes raking over her in a ballroom, as if she were no better than a streetwalker.
She narrowed her eyes.
He blinked as if he was surprised, and then a slow smile crooked one corner of his mouth.
“The duke is looking at you!” Maddie said from somewhere to her right. “Phee, that will never do.” Her cousin actually soundedalarmed. “He’s far too much for you. Nothing like sweet Peter.”
That shook Ophelia out of a haze caused by the duke’s attention. She turned her head and smiled at her cousin. “Don’t be silly,Maddie. He’s probably mistaken me for someone else, that’s all. Will I see you tomorrow?”
“It could be that he’s walking toward me,” her cousin said breathlessly. “He could be glancing at you as a decoy.” She grippedOphelia’s forearm hard enough to leave a bruise. “How do you think he’d respond if I lured him into a side room and tied himup?”
Ophelia ducked behind her fan and hissed, “What on earth are you talking about? You don’t tie up Penshallow, do you?”
“The duke’s so large,” Maddie said, giggling madly. “Of course, I don’t . . . It was just a silly thought.”
“He doesn’t look like the sort of a man who would wish to be tied up for any reason.” Not that she knew any man who had thatsort of propensity, for all the ladies whispered about it in drawing rooms over tea.
She dropped her fan just enough to steal another glance over it.
The duke’s eyes were still fixed not on Maddie but on her. He was walking directly toward them, ignoring any number of womenthrowing themselves into his path.
“Perhaps he knew your husband,” her cousin said, sounding perplexed. “He really does appear to be looking at you, Phee.”
Ophelia shared her confusion. She wasn’t the kind of woman whom a man lost his head over. She had a pointed nose, a temper,a pile of red hair, and an overly generous bosom, even more so after being enhanced by motherhood. The thought of Viola broughther back to herself.
“If he was friends with my husband, he can pay me a morning call, as did Peter’s other friends.”
“I know!” Maddie said, her face clearing. “He’s been told what a wonderful mother you are. Oh, Ophelia, you could be a duchess!”
“I’m not available to mother a flock of discarded children,” Ophelia said sharply. She was conscious of a sense of disappointment.Just once, she’d like a man to look at her for herself.
Peter had been shepherded in her direction by his father and her mother during her debut ball. They danced twice and sat togetherat supper. Pudding hadn’t even been served before he said, with his disarming smile, “I say, we get along pretty well, don’twe?”
They did. They had.
But Peter hadn’t the faintest idea what sort of woman she was when he asked her to marry him.
“Even to be a duchess?”
Ophelia frowned. “I’m perfectly comfortable as I am, Maddie.”
Her cousin sighed. “It’s true that I can’t imagine you in such an elevated role. It would be like hearing that the baker hadbeen knighted.”
“Maddie!” Ophelia protested. “I’m hardly a baker.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll set him straight,” her cousin said. “You’d better leave unless you want to refuse him yourself; Lady Persellcaught his arm, but he’ll be heading this direction again in a moment.”
Ophelia definitely did not want to encounter the duke. The man looked like a hunter, strolling across the ballroom in thatpink coat, pretending to be a gentleman, which he wasn’t.
He absolutely was not.
She didn’t know why she was so sure of that, but she was. The Duke of Lindow was a nobleman, in the old-fashioned sense ofthe term. He probably had vassals, serfs, a county of his own, and an escutcheon.
She gave Maddie a brisk kiss and set out for the door. After a moment she sped up, practically diving toward the entranceto the ballroom. It almost seemed as if she could feel his approach like a warm wind at her back, even though that made nosense.
Just as she turned so she could squeeze between two groups of gossiping peers without her panniers bumping them, a hand closedaround her elbow.
She felt the shock of his touch through her entire body.
“Yes?” she said, turning. She managed to keep her tone cool. What she saw in the Duke of Lindow’s eyes made her raise an eyebrow.“You must have mistaken me for someone else,” she said, her tone almost kindly.
No one had ever looked at her, at Ophelia, like that. Not even Peter.
Perhaps Lindow thought she was a girl he had loved in his youth.
“I am not mistaken,” the duke replied. His eyes were a dark, dark green, the color of spruce trees when they stood vividlyagainst the snow.
His voice startled her because it was deeper than she would have thought. Like a bear’s growl. In fact, he looked like a bearemerging from a winter’s sleep, she thought irrelevantly. Coming into the world and looking for a nice rabbit to eat.
She was not a rabbit for any man’s consumption. She had no need of a husband, and no desire for a lover either. Still lessdid she want to nurture a flock of motherless children, no matter how sad that was.
Given that her own cousin thought of her as a baker, people would know exactly why he was courting her—to turn her into aglorified governess.
“Excuse me,” she said, allowing impatience to leak into her voice. Then she gently pulled her arm