No, he couldn’t be. He had been directing her which way to go, that was all. She sat in the chair he had indicated.
The duke shook his head. “You can’t just drop into the chair like a pile of rocks,” he said. “You have to move with elegance. Stand up.”
Lavinia stood.
He frowned. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what? I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re fidgeting. Pulling at your gown. Why do you do that?”
“Oh.” She had been, she realized. “Well, it moved out of place when I sat and stood. I was adjusting it so that I would be comfortable again, that’s all.”
“You can’t do that,” he said. “Put your hands down.”
“So I should just stand with my gown twisted?”
“Where is it out of place? Show me.”
She gestured to the side. “The skirt is turned a bit. This part should face forward—I can feel the fabric bunching.”
“Give a little shimmy and it should settle back into place just fine.”
Lavinia frowned and shook herself.
“Not likethat. Your movements ought to be small and subtle,” he said. “Try it again.”
Lavinia focused on his advice and twisted at the waist very slightly. She looked back at the duke for approval.
“That was better,” he said. “And you need to learn to relax and focus on what’s going on around you, not to fixate on things like this. Nobody else is paying such detailed attention to your clothing, and you don’t need to either. Fidgeting like that is a clear way of telling everyone around you how uncertain you are of yourself, because you’re too focused on your own body. Now take a seat—and this time, don’t just fall into the chair as if you’ve been deboned. Sit slowly. Delicately.”
It was the kind of criticism Lavinia could have imagined her father giving her, and a part of her felt a desire to shoot back at him with some sort of angry comment. But at the end of the day, she knew he was right. Things like thiswerethe reason she was looked at oddly. Things like this were the reason she probably wouldn’t find a husband she liked—unless something changed. Unlessshechanged.
He was helping her, and he didn’t have to do that. If she was ungrateful towards him, he would probably stop.
She sank slowly into the chair. “Was that better?” she asked, looking up at him.
“Yes. That was very ladylike,” he said. “You had that in you all this time?”
“Was it really that different?”
“Very different. Would you like me to show you the difference?”
“No,” Lavinia said. “That won’t be necessary.” The idea of watching him mimic her was taking things too far.
“Very well.” He sat down in the chair across from hers. “Now, I ought to have had some tea sent up so that we could practice drinking it together, but of course, there would have been no way to do that without revealing that two people were meeting in the library tonight, and we don’t want anyone to know—not even the servants.”
“No,” Lavinia snorted. “That wouldn’t be seen as very ladylike at all.”
“Don’tsnort. My goodness. Laugh like a lady, if you must. Quietly.”
“You can show me the difference there, if you’d like to,” she challenged him, wondering if she might persuade him into giving a ladylike laugh. It would be entertaining.
The duke rolled his eyes. “I know you’ve heard ladies laugh before. You don’t need me to show you how that’s done. If you find it so confusing, ask your sister to show you. She has it mastered. Honestly, I don’t know how she learned all these things and you learned none of them.”
Lavinia felt the smile drop off her face. “And is that why you brought me here tonight?” she asked. “You wanted to know why my sister is more charming than I am? Perhaps you thought that was something you could teach me? That I might not have heard it before?”
“There’s no reason to get angry,” the duke said, raising his eyebrows.
