He thought she’d stop. Turn back. Curtsy and then leave.
It was a wager he would have lost. Daria opened the panel without hesitation. She had one foot outside.
Argyll called to her. “Daria?”
That forced her back around. “Gregory?”
She thought she was in charge? Oh, she’d learn and fast.
“Wear something other than black, little raven.”
Thatgave her pause.
Argyll arched a single brow at her continued silence.
With a little nod, his innocent bride left.
This time he let her.
Arms folded at his chest; Argyll stared at the door she’d departed through. A grin played at his lips. He, the Duke of Argyll, agreed to marry the Lady in Black? It was preposterous. Ludicrous. Irrational.
And it was also the most electrifying thing to break through what’d become his tediously predictable rake’s existence. Daria Kearsley, the most unlikely of women, had managed to pierce his ennui.
His smile stretched.
It appeared madness was contagious, after all.
Chapter 8
Born somewhere in the middle of an enormous family, one could simultaneously exist surrounded by a sea of garrulous, loving, teasing kin, but also on the fringe of it all. Even though she often chose silence during their great rumpuses, she’d still been part of something larger. Joyous. Comforting.
A family.
It’s all she’d known, and Daria hadn’t properly considered how bleak and awful it was no longer living with a big, loving hoard of Kearsleys.
Until this moment, on a different fringe of a different family. One that would soon be hers.
Unless Gregory’s partners had their way and talked him out of the duke’s momentary lapse in sanity—as they clearly did at the front of the room.
From where they spoke in hushed tones, they’d stolen no fewer than eleven looks in Daria’s direction. Sometimes it was both gentlemen who did so. Other times, it was oneorthe other.
Now twelve.
This time, it was Lord Kilburn who leveled his intense gaze on Daria.
Her tummy tightening, Daria angled her toes inward, wishing he’d look away.
It came to her. Perhaps she’d offended them by not acknowledging their stares.
Daria lifted her fingers in a small wave and forced a smile. Ultimately, it took a great deal, usually the unexpected, to elicit a natural one.
A flicker of suspicion turned the earl’s already dark eyes even darker. He turned his focus back to the duke and Lord Rutherford, and an exchange that’d taken on a greater intensity.Picking up on emotions and social cues was a challenge for Daria, but as a sister who’d grown up amidst quarreling kin, an argument she recognized all too well.
Not once did Gregory look Daria’s way.
Not one person of his circle and social station would dare support his marriage to a widely disdained wallflower like Daria.
Positioned beside the same seats where she and Gregory discussed and eventually negotiated the terms of their union, she took in the lengthy debate going on at the duke’s desk.
