"I believe I have found him."
The voice came from behind him, and Daniel turned.
A young woman was walking toward the group, and in her arms was a small, dirt-smeared boy who appeared to be eating a sticky bun with single-minded determination. The child's mother let out a sob of relief and rushed forward, gathering her son into her arms with the sort of fierce, trembling embrace that made Daniel deeply uncomfortable to witness.
"Oh, thank you, thank you! Where was he? Where did you find him?"
"Behind the cheese stall," the young woman said. Her voice was calm, her manner unhurried, as though reuniting lost children with their hysterical mothers was simply part of her afternoon routine. "He had discovered a litter of kittens and was attempting to convince them to follow him home. We negotiated a compromise involving baked goods."
The mother laughed, a wet, relieved sound, and thanked her again, and again, until the young woman gently extracted herself from the effusions of gratitude and stepped back.
It was only then that Daniel truly looked at her.
She was not beautiful. Or rather, she was not beautiful in the way that London society defined the term. She lacked the porcelain delicacy, the artful ringlets, the studied grace that characterized the young ladies who paraded through Almack's each Season. Her hair was brown and she was simply dressed. Her gown was modest and slightly unfashionable, and her complexion suggested she spent rather more time outdoors than was strictly proper.
But there was something about her face, something in the steadiness of her gaze, the slight curve of her mouth, the way she stood with her weight evenly balanced, as though she were rooted to the earth itself, that made it difficult to look away.
She was looking at the child now, watching as his mother carried him off toward home, and there was a softness in her expression that did something peculiar to Daniel's chest. A sort of tightening, or loosening, he could not quite tell which.
He did not like it.
"That was well done," he said, and immediately regretted speaking, because now she was looking athim, and the steadiness of her gaze was considerably more unsettling when directed at his person.
"It was nothing, Your Grace." She curtsied correctly, if without particular flourish. "He was not truly lost. Only temporarily misplaced."
"There is a distinction?"
"A significant one, I think. Lost implies genuine danger. Misplaced suggests merely a failure of organisation."
Her tone was perfectly polite, but there was something in it, a glint of something that might have been humor, that made Daniel narrow his eyes.
"You have a philosophical turn of mind, Miss...?"
"Whitcombe. Lillian Whitcombe." She met his gaze directly, which was unusual. Most people, particularly women, tended to look at his cravat or his shoulder or some fixed point in the middle distance when speaking to him. Miss Whitcombe appeared to have no such compunction. "And I would not call it philosophical, Your Grace. Merely practical. I have younger cousins. One learns to distinguish between genuine emergencies and temporary inconveniences."
"I see."
He should say something else. Something gracious and ducal and appropriate to the occasion. But his mind had gone curiously blank, and he found himself simply standing there, looking at her, while the noise of the fair continued around them.
Say something, he commanded himself.You are a duke. You have been trained in the art of conversation since birth. Say something.
"Your hem is dirty," he said.
Of all the things he might have chosen to say, this was perhaps the worst. Miss Whitcombe glanced down at the muddied edge of her gown, a consequence, no doubt, of kneeling behind the cheese stall to retrieve the wayward child, and when she looked up again, there was definite amusement in her eyes.
"Indeed," she agreed. "It is."
She did not apologize. She did not blush or stammer or offer excuses. She simply acknowledged the fact and waited, as though curious to see what he would do with it.
Daniel had no idea what to do with it.
"Daniel!" Rosanne's voice cut through his paralysis, and he turned to find his sister hurrying toward them, her cheeks flushed with exertion. "There you are. Itoldyou to wait for me, but you never listen. Is everything...Oh!"
She stopped short, her gaze fixing on Miss Whitcombe with sudden, delighted recognition.
"Miss Whitcombe! How lovely to see you again!"
Again?Daniel looked between the young woman with the dirty hem and his sister, feeling as though he had missed a step on a familiar staircase.
