“Let them.”
“Your Grace?—”
“Henry.” His voice rumbled low. Fierce. “When we’re like this—when it’s just us—call me Henry.”
“Henry,” she whispered.
His eyes darkened. “Again.”
“Henry.”
For one wild, reckless moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. Right there. In the middle of the ballroom. In front of everyone.
Instead, he stepped back. Released her slowly, as if it cost him something. “Thank you,” he said formally, “for the dance.”
“Thank you for the stunned goose impression.”
His mouth twitched. “It was convincing?”
“Devastatingly convincing. I feared for my toes.”
“As you should have.” He bowed. Proper. Correct. Everything a duke should be.
But when he straightened, his eyes were anything but proper. They were hungry. And Margaret realized, with a thrill that was equal parts terror and exhilaration, that she was starving too.
“I should—” She gestured vaguely toward the crowd. Toward propriety. Toward safety.
“You should,” he agreed. But he didn’t move or look away.
The air between them felt charged. Dangerous.
She should walk away. Return her thoughts to the ballroom. Remember all the reasons why a widow and a duke sharing heated looks was a terrible idea. But she didn’t move.
“Margaret—”
“Your Grace.” Lady Pemberton appeared beside them, her smile bright and predatory. “How delightful to see you enjoying yourself. Lady Margaret, your dancing was lovely. Though perhaps you should rest now. Widows mustn’t overexert themselves.”
The spell shattered.
Margaret’s cheeks burned, the implicit rebuke clear: widows shouldn’t dance with hungry eyes and flushed cheeks.
“Of course,” she murmured. “You’re quite right.”
She fled to the orangery, where the air was thick and sweet and no one would remind her what widows were supposed to do.
CHAPTER 5
Margaret shouldn’t have come to the orangery. She knew it the moment she stepped inside. The humid air wrapped around her like a secret. The air was sweet with orange blossom, a warm aroma that caught at the back of her throat. Candle flames quivered in brass sconces, throwing leaf-lace shadows across potted palms and glossy citrus laden with fruit.
It appeared too secluded and too much like stepping outside the world she knew into one where different rules applied. But her feet had carried her here anyway, away from the ballroom’s scrutiny and the exhausting pretense of thriving in a role that was suffocating her.
She crossed to the fountain at the center—a shallow basin carved from pale stone, water trickling over its edges in a soothing rhythm. She pulled off her gloves and trailed her finger through the cool water.
Just five minutes. That’s all she needed. Time to breathe alone and gather herself after the dance with the handsome duke. She had no business feeling like a debutante who had something to offer a man like him and yet he made her feel things she only knew from books.
Footsteps crunched on gravel.
Margaret’s heart stopped. She spun around.
