"You don't recognise me, do you?" she said, irritation getting the better of her. After all, why should she sit there and be pleasant and pretend like he hadn't been supremely rude only days earlier?
He frowned. "From the ball? Of course I do, Lady Constance. Why, you'd think me awfully rude if I did not."
Constance couldn't help but laugh. "No, not from the ball."
"We have met before, then?" the Earl said with a frown. "You must forgive me. I must admit, I do not remember. I don’t socialise much, so it is odd…"
"Well, I presume you do remember the incident. After all, you screamed and told me to get out. That seems like something one would remember."
His eyes widened and his face went ashen.
"You weren’t…you weren’t the woman who broke into my castle?"
Constance sighed. "I didn’t break in, no. As I tried to tell you before you screamed at me, I had been told it was abandoned. And I was wrong. I told you I love castles – so I was exploring."
The Earl reached for his wine and took a large gulp before replying. "Well, I-I mean—" He seemed to be struggling to find the words. "I apologise for shouting at you, of course, Lady Constance. If I had known—"
"If you had known I was a lady, you wouldn’t have shouted at me? Well, that hardly seems right. No matter who I was – whether I was a pauper wandering in off the streets or a duchess – I don’t think you should have spoken to me like—"
"See here, I thought you had broken into my home! I feel like I have a right to—"
"You were scared I was going to rob you, were you? Or attack you, perhaps, like the thief you thought I was? No, my lord, you shouted because you thought I was unimportant. And nobody is ever unimportant, no matter their status."
Looking decidedly uncomfortable, he began, "I don’t think—" but she could tell she’d got through to him. After all, how could he argue with her? They both knew that had she turned up looking like a proper lady, as she was now, he would have been unlikely to have shouted at her and thrown her out.
Chapter Seven
The rest of the meal was rather uncomfortable. He could not quite believe that the woman he had sent away, whom he had been so angry at, was this very same beauty who sat beside him. Well, at least he had solved the mystery of why she hated him so much. He had been extremely rude; unconscionably rude. And although he didn’t want to admit it to her, he thought she was right. He had assumed she was of lower status, and it had affected the way he had spoken to her.
She spent much of the meal turning and talking to Lady Aylesbury, who was married to the Duke’s cousin. Ezra tried to remember what he knew of her. He thought he recognised her, and so he asked her, when there was a break in the conversation, "Did you grow up around here?"
She blushed, looked down at her plate, and then across to the Duchess, who gave her a warm smile.
Ezra didn’t know what he’d done wrong this time.
"Lady Aylesbury grew up in the village," the Duchess said, for some reason answering for the quiet redhead.
"I see, that must be why I recognise you," Ezra said, rather confused as to why such an innocent question would prompt embarrassment and the need for someone else to reply.
"And how are you finding Scotland?" the duchess at one end of the table asked the duchess halfway down. "Is it much different than Northumberland?"
The Duchess of Dunloch flashed a smile at her husband before responding. "Not really. After all, it’s not that far over the border. Although James would disagree – but of course he thinks Scotland is superior in all things."
"Because it is," the Duke of Dunloch said. He could not glean any trace of a Scottish accent in the man’s voice and wondered if he had grown up elsewhere. But he was worried to ask, in case that also caused an issue for some reason.
"You must come and visit, though, and bring the children – I think they’d like it. Of course, I miss Amblewood—"
"The Duchess does not think any castle rivals Amblewood Castle," the Duke of Dunloch said with a wry smile.
"I rather think I’d think the same of Blackthorne," the second duke said, in a rare contribution to the conversation.
Ezra wondered if the Duke was quiet because he had been secluded from society for so long. And yet he himself had been absent for some time, and did not find it made him unable to make conversation, or even that he didn’t wish to. In fact, he was surprised at how much he was enjoying being back out in society again. Perhaps his mother had had a point. He couldn’t hide away forever, just because Laura was gone, just because he felt guilty, just because he didn’t know where to begin.
"That would be wonderful," the Duchess said. "The children are always wanting new places to explore, running off to find secrets together." She smiled indulgently, but Ezra found his attention wandering. He found he had little interest in children, let alone ones he hadn’t even met. They were all the same really – a necessity, certainly, but not an idea he relished.
Although Lady Constance barely spoke to him for the rest of the meal, he was feeling a little less embarrassed by the end of it, having conversed with the rest of the group, and with the plan to apologise properly to her once they were in the library after dinner. He had been rude, and it had not been necessary,and clearly, he had given a terrible first impression. He wanted to make things right, and so he planned his apology for as soon as the gentlemen rejoined the ladies after dinner.
But that time never came. Whilst he was sipping brandy in the library with the two dukes and Lord Aylesbury, a frantic-looking servant burst through the doors.
