“Good to know,” he said, unabashed. “By the way, ye have something just here.”
He pointed to his cheek. Clio swiped furiously at her own face, but came up with nothing.
“Oh, my mistake,” he said. “Must have been a shadow.”
She let out a little growl.
Phoebe was watching this like it was the greatest night she’d ever had at the theater, but eventually she remembered that she was a duchess in her own home.
“My husband will be with us shortly, Your Grace,” she said politely. “In the meantime, can I ring for tea?”
He grimaced. “I’ve had what Londoners think passes for tea.”
“So, no then?” Phoebe asked, undaunted.
His grimace intensified. “No.”
Clio took the moment that the duke’s attention was on Phoebe to frantically smooth her hair and shake out her dress.
Phoebe gave her most winning smile. “Perhaps a walk, then? My husband is currently in Hyde Park, and I am certain that he would enjoy seeing you.”
This was one of the most bald-faced lies that Clio had heard in herlife. She was rather impressed at Phoebe’s ability to deliver it with a straight face.
The duke looked as though he, too, would not enjoy any such thing. He seemed as though he was sucking on a lemon when he said, “That would be pleasant, thank you.”
Clio and Phoebe briefly excused themselves to don their spencers and bonnets for walking, during which Clio spared a moment to have a mental crisis.
What was he evendoinghere? He’d made himself perfectly clear the other day …
Or, no, he hadn’t made himself clearat all, given that baffling almost-kiss, but he’d made it clear enough that he didn’t intend to pursue any kind of—anythingwith her.
So, why was he here? Demanding to talk to her brother?
It did not bode well.
She took extra care with her toilette, half out of a desire to redeem herself from the whole ‘bosom full of crumbs’ incident, half because she felt no desire to return downstairs to rejoin the unpleasantness of waiting with the duke.
When they returned to the drawing room and began, footman in tow to protect the tender virtues of the ladies, Clio found that she was feeling too stubborn to be the first one to give in and ask what, precisely, was going on here.
Phoebe had no such compunctions.
“So,” she said, twirling her parasol merrily, as though this were a perfectly ordinary social outing, “what brings you here, Your Grace?”
Metford was staring furiously at the street ahead of them as though it had done him an injury, his hands clasped in front of him atop the handle of his walking stick. For all his brusqueness and lack of polish, he was doing aremarkableimpression of a ‘brooding gentleman’ at the moment. If only the weather would cooperate with a proper drizzle, he could be the image on the frontispiece of a gothic novel.
“I have business with your husband,” he said without looking at either of them.
Phoebe waited for more information. It was not forthcoming.
Phoebe cast a wide-eyed look at Clio behind the duke’s back.
You see what I’m dealing with, Clio sent back with her eyes.
And Phoebe had dared to suggest that Clio wasattractedto him! Just because he had the arms, and the handsome face, and all of that stone-hewn strength about him? Outrageous.
They lapsed into an agonizing silence as they continued the short walk to Hyde Park. The duke was visibly miserable, which was one consolation to Clio, who was also miserable. Phoebe seemed entirely unbothered.
There was an awful ruckus going on in the park, and as they approached a cluster of gentlemen gathered around something, Clio realized that her sister by marriage had left out an extremelyimportant detail about what her husband was doing during hisouting.
