“Do walk like the lady you are, Verity,” he reminded her sternly.
“Yes, Papa,” his daughter called, curtsying once more, before she was gone.
The moment the door closed upon her, the atmosphere in the room changed. When he turned back to Johanna, Felix’s demeanor had settled into a rigid mask. Even his green eyes, ordinarily so vibrant and warm, were cold and hard. She wondered where he had gone so early this morning, and whether that trip was the reason for his coolness.
Something had made him unhappy. His guard, which had dropped during Verity’s revelations about her governess, was firmly in place. The love he plainly had for his daughter had melted her heart. His affection had vibrated in his voice, had been raw and real in his expression. He had appeared, in the moment when he had taken Verity into his arms, more man than duke.
But every part of him as he faced her now was the regal duke once more.
“I should be leaving,” she said, reminded she did not belong here. “I hope you do not mind that I waited until you returned. Lady Verity did not want to be alone, and it did not feel right to leave her in the care of the servants.”
His jaw clenched. “Thank you for remaining here with her. For entertaining her.”
Still, he was so cool. His tone frosty.
She felt uncertain. Perhaps the childishness of her song had displeased him.
“I am sorry for the song,” she said, clasping her hands before her to keep them from twisting in the skirts of her gown. It was the same one she had worn yesterday, and she was keenly aware of how she must appear, wearing the previous night’s rumpled gown. Her hem had been sodden and muddied, and she had done her best to clean it by hand before draping it on a chair before the fire in her chamber to dry.
He, by comparison, was austere and debonair. He was dressed immaculately in a black waistcoat, coat, and trousers, with a white neck cloth and shirt. He was unfairly handsome this morning, as always.
“The song, Mademoiselle Beaumont?” he asked.
Ah, so she had once more reverted to Mademoiselle Beaumont. The formality was as telling as it was troubling. She must have vexed him a great deal.
“The odorous cloud in particular,” she elaborated, and then felt the tips of her ears burn as a mad flush overcame her. “I find children like to sing songs, and the more inane the better. Forgive me. I know Lady Verity is the daughter of a duke. I should not have presumed to lead her in such frivolity.”
He swallowed, drawing her gaze to the prominence of his Adam’s apple, the strength of his corded neck. The wide angle of his jaw, kissed with the shadow of whiskers. He had not shaved this morning in his press to leave the house, it would seem.
For a brief, fanciful moment, she wondered what those whiskers would feel like beneath her seeking fingers. Rasping against her cheek, her throat. Her breasts.
He moved toward her slowly, almost as if he were drawn against his will. “You sing with children a great deal, do you, Mademoiselle?”
“There is an orphanage in New York City I visit from time to time,” she said, thinking of the children she had oft visited there, missing them. “Many of them were of an age with your daughter. They all liked to sing with me.”
“I cannot imagine a single soul who would not like to sing with you,” he said, stroking his jaw with his long, elegant fingers, watching her in an almost predatory manner. “You do have a way of enthralling everyone you meet. Keeping everyone beneath your spell. How do you do it?”
He was nearer now, and she could have asked the same question of him. For he had held her in his thrall from the evening they had first met at Mr. Saville’s fête. And there it was again, the scent of sandalwood seeping into her senses. Surrounding her. Making her yearn for him in ways she ought not.
“How do you do it, Mademoiselle?” he persisted, his voice low and dark. Not cold any longer, but not warm either. “You did not answer me.”
She fought the urge to retreat, to put more distance between them, for there seemed something undeniably dangerous about him now. But she held her ground, remaining by the piano where she had stood upon his entrance.
“I was not aware I held such powers, Your Grace,” she said. “I am just an ordinary woman, after all.”
“There is nothing ordinary about you, Johanna Beaumont.” He reached out, touching a curl that had escaped the chignon she had twisted her unruly hair into that morning. “Not one single, blessed thing.”
She forced herself to smile, affecting Rose’s airs. Rose’s aura. “I am gratified you think so.”
“I do not think so.” He continued to toy with that lone curl, not touching her anywhere else. But his gaze had dropped, lingering upon her lips. “I know so. There are secrets in your eyes, you know. Shadows.”
What a fanciful thing to say. Strange, too.
She thought of the trunk awaiting her in her hotel. Of Drummond. And then she banished both equally unwanted thoughts.
“We all have secrets and shadows, do we not?” she asked, trying and failing to keep the breathlessness from her voice.
What this man did to her—the power he held over her—was frightening. She had gone from laughing with a child, singing an inane song, to longing for him with a rush of desperation that was as troubling as it was undeniable.
