“A pleasure,” Daria murmured, dropping a curtsy.
Neither gentleman made a move to leave. She lingered.
“What is it, Miss Kearsley?” Lord Rutherford asked in a gentling way that put Daria in mind of her brother, Clayton. “Is there something you require help with?”
If that were truly an offer, she had a whole list of favors she’d welcome assistance on. Alas, there remained the most pressing one—for now.
“Can you bring the duke up to scratch?” she said under her breath.
The marquess cupped a hand around his ear. “What was that?”
“I…would ask neither of you mention my being here,” she murmured. “It would be quite ruinous.”
“And yet here you are.”
The tread of angry footfalls sounded only a moment before the door was wrenched open. Sans jacket, cravat, and in nothing but his lawn sleeves. Snarling, the duke glared between the two men. “Kilburn, Rutherford, weren’t you just itching to leave?”
Ah, Lord Kilburn, theothergentleman. Both wore traces of amusement. Ghosts of smiles that transferred light.
Warmth radiated at the edges of her consciousness. Unblinking, she swiveled her focus to the grandiose space at the duke’s back.
The sight of the wedding.
“The friends,” she breathed.
This was the place she’d seen. Two men she’d envisioned.
“I beg your pardon?” Lord Kilburn’s crisp, gravelly tones broke the hold over Daria.
Three unforgiving gazes were locked on Daria.
Lord Rutherford—the Merciful One, as he existed in her mind—clapped a hand on Lord Kilburn’s shoulder. “I believe Argyll has this under control.”
“Doubtful,” his partner muttered.
Daria laughed.
Unfortunately, hers wasn’t the quiet, soft giggles every other lady affected, but the big, snorting sort. Daria’s mirth rarely struck hard, but when it did…
Yes, well it attracted the same bemused or horrified reactions of the three before her.
She got control of herself.
“Inside, Miss Kearsley,” the duke snapped.
As Daria entered, she felt his presence behind her; imposing and powerful. He closed the heavily engraved panel door without so much as a click.
Her gaze landed on the flatweave Aubusson rug and Daria stilled. A shiver touched her, delicate as a remembered dream. At its center bloomed hand-embroidered roses, pink peonies, dahlias, carnations, green chrysanthemums. Daria drifted nearer, walking as if in her sleep.
“There.”
Daria angled herself forward. “Hmm?”
The Duke of Argyll stabbed a finger at the leather sofa.
While the gentleman went to the sideboard and pouredwhiskeyinto asnifter, Daria briefly considered the buttoned sofa near the French-style fireplace. That heavy masculine piece, along with his dark Chippendale pedestal desk and leather armchairs before it at odds with the pastoral scenes adorning his floor and walls. It was an amalgamation of delicate and soft. Heavy and light. Everything about the Duke of Argyll: from every cleverly wielded word spoken, to each posture struck, down to the adornments chosen for this space were done so by design.
Argyll shifted. “Now—” His gaze locked on Daria in the same spot she’d been occupying.
