He should put a stop to it. He should make it clear to Rosanne that her matchmaking efforts were neither welcome nor appropriate.
He should do many things.
"The placement seems adequate," he said, setting down the chart. "You may inform Mrs. Gerald that she has my approval."
"Very good, Your Grace. And may I say, it is gratifying to see Wynthorpe hosting more varied company than in previous years. Miss Whitcombe has been a pleasant addition to the household."
Daniel looked up sharply, but Simmons's expression was blandly professional, revealing nothing of what he might be implying beneath the surface.
"That will be all, Simmons."
"Your Grace."
The steward departed, and Daniel was left alone with the seating chart and the uncomfortable awareness that even his servants had begun to notice his preoccupation with Miss Lillian Whitcombe.
This would not do.
He returned the chart to the corner of his desk and picked up his quill pen, determined to focus on the correspondence that awaited his attention. A letter from his solicitor regarding the Sussex property. A request from a London acquaintance seeking his support for some parliamentary initiative. An invitation to a hunting gathering that he had no intention of accepting.
Normal matters, mundane matters, matters that had nothing whatsoever to do with a certain country neighbor with steady eyes and a disconcerting habit of seeing straight through him.
The quill pen hovered over the paper but the words did not come.
Daniel set down the quill pen with rather more force than necessary and stared at the wall.
The harvest dinner was in three days. He would be required to host, to converse, to fulfill his duties as a Duke with appropriate grace and dignity. Miss Whitcombe would be present. She would sit at his table, eat his food, exist in his space for an entire evening.
He could manage one evening. Surely he could manage one evening.
The question was whether he could manage it without betraying the unwelcome awareness that had taken root in his chest; the awareness that noticed when she entered a room, that tracked her movements without his conscious permission, that catalogued the precise shade of her eyes and the exact quality of her laugh.
It was intolerable and it was inappropriate. It was, if he was being entirely honest with himself, becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
Daniel retrieved the seating chart and examined it once more. Miss Whitcombe was placed near Rosanne, as was proper, since she was a guest of his sister's, seated in proximity to her hostess. But the arrangement also placed her directly in his line of sight from the head of the table.
He should move her. He should place her somewhere less visible. Somewhere he would not be forced to look at her every time he raised his eyes from his plate.
His quill pen hovered over her name.
He could move her next to the vicar's wife, a pleasant but voluble woman whose constant chatter would prevent any meaningful conversation. Or beside old Mr. Garrett, who was nearly deaf and required one to shout to be heard. Or at the far end of the table, where she would be lost among the tenant farmers and their wives.
The pen remained suspended because he did not make the alteration.
Instead, he found himself moving her namecloser;not to Rosanne's seat, but to his own. One place removed from his right hand, where he would be able to hear her voice, observe her expressions, perhaps even exchange a word or two during the meal.
He stared at the revised arrangement for a long moment.
Then, with a muttered oath that would have scandalized his late mother, he crossed out the change and moved her back to her original position.
Mrs. Gerald could have her seating chart. And Daniel could have the small comfort of knowing that he had not entirely lost his senses.
Not entirely.
Not yet.
***
The evening of the harvest dinner arrived with the sort of crisp autumn weather that seemed designed to remind the English countryside of its own picturesque beauty. The trees had begun their transformation from green to gold, the air carried the scent of wood smoke and fallen leaves, and the great hall of Wynthorpe had been polished and prepared until it gleamed in the candlelight like something from a painting.
