Lady Raina slid a palm over the girl’s mouth.
“Dreff.” Lady Millie shoved the silencing hand aside. “Undress.”
The hard-eyed stranger appeared amused more than offended. One such as him wouldn’t be one to take offense. His next words confirmed as much. “She is not wrong.”
“And he only saysthatbecause he cannot bring himself to admit that anyone other than himself is correct.”
Daria laughed. She was completely in love with her almost-sister.
Daria’s nape tingled; the indescribable sensation froze her smile and drew her eyes to the source of that prickling.
The Duke of Argyll’s clear, unerring gaze was fixed upon her, cold as ice and sharp as a blade.
“What the dickens, Daria?” Delia’s horror-filled eyes flickered among the prospective grooms. “You are marrying—”
Daria pointed at Gregory. “That one.”
Gone was the duke’s rare air of gravity. Gregory sketched a deep, polished bow. “A pleasure, MissKearsley?”
The lazy hip he dropped against his desk—perilously close to the book of prayers—extinguished whatever civility that bow had promised. “You are a Kearsley, are you not?”
Shock and fury flared to life in Delia.
“Him?” Delia whipped back around. “Whose own sister throws his honor into question?”
“Yes, Delia.”She dropped her voice to a barely there whisper. “I chose him.”
Her sister gasped. “Comenotwithin the measure of my wrath!”
“Are…they performing a Shakespeare play?”
“It appears to benumerousones.” Lord Rutherford favored the little girl with a wink.
“Which somehow makesfarmore sense than Argyll marrying, that one.”
Lady Raina gasped. “Severin!”
Delia sprung to Daria’s defense. “Knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical r…rogue—” All that fresh color leeched from her sister’s cheeks.
Her sister glanced sadly in the duke’s direction. “Oh, Daria. Do you think that his contempt shall not be bruising to you? When he hath power to crush?”
Sorrow ravaged Delia’s expressive eyes.
Daria looked where her sister willed.
The duke stood in his perpetually languid state, arms folded, posture relaxed, but still commanding. His handsome features lazily jocund. His usual heart-stopping smile—heart to all topped with his usual grin.
Practiced. Practiced is what it was. It’s what he was.
Daria cocked her head. So much went into that affect. What…accounted for the façade he presented, and how very wearisome it must be pretending every moment of one’s life? Even she’d found herself failing to wonder past it. Perhaps that was the most intentional thing about the gentleman.
Her sister’s earnest voice intruded. “Daria! Hasty marriages seldom proveth well.”
No, but then, that was the point, wasn’t it?
Understanding filled up Delia’s sun-kissed face. “No.”
Daria nodded slowly. “Yes.” It was happening. Soon.
