“I understand that the club is a success. Not that I would know as I have not been granted a membership.”
She said nothing but sipped her tea instead.
“If you are needed there, why were you traveling to Faversham?” he asked. He needed to get Bethany to talk to him.
“With the holiday, we had fewer in attendance than I anticipated so I closed until after the first of the year.” She took a sip of tea, and gently set her cup back in the saucer before looking up and meeting his eyes. “I also reevaluated the true reason I had chosen to stay behind and decided that I was not going to let anyone keep me from my family this holiday.” She glared at him with her last statement.
“Anyone?” he asked. Something told him that Bethany didn’t mean the members of her club. “Me? Is it because I was going to be present since my sister married your cousin?”
Bethany must truly hate him, which did not bode well for their future.
“I did not want my holiday ruined by a duke who cannot stand to be in my presence, and who glares and growls when I am about.”
“I do no such thing,” Leopold argued.
“Yes, you do. You have treated me the same since that regrettable day when I pushed you into the Serpentine."
Bethany gasped and placed a hand over her mouth.
Leopold raised an eyebrow, even though it pained him to do so, but at least he may finally learn why she did so.
Bethany had not wanted to admit why she was avoiding her uncle’s home but did not want to lie either. But she certainly hadn’t intended to remind him of the most humiliating and uncharacteristic moment of her life.
His eyes narrowed as he set his breakfast tray aside and sat up more fully, the covers dropping so that they barely covered his lap. Oh, she wished he would keep them pulled to his chin so that she did not have to stare at his muscular chest with the sprinkle of dark hair that matched his thickening beard or view the defined lines of his abdomen that nearly looked sculpted.
One glimpse and she warmed all over. So much so that the fire she’d been tending since they arrived was not needed.
“I still do not know why you did so. There was no cause,” he said calmly.
“There most certainly was!” She’d never been so deeply hurt by words before, which was likely what prompted her to shove him in the first place.
“Would you care to enlighten me because I was having a conversation with friends then suddenly, I found myself falling into the water.”
“You claimed that you were happy to be free of Tessa and her friends who were nothing but bird-witted twits.”
“Tessa was quite happy to be free of me as well,” he reminded her.
“That is not to what I refer,” she said through clenched teeth as she became angry again.
“The bird-witted twits?” he asked, as if he was confused.
“Yes!”
Claybrook stared her down and then his brown eyes widened, and he started to smile. “I did not mean you.”
Bethany sprung to her feet. Oh, she was not going to allow him to lie to her. She’d been standing there and had heard him quite clearly. “I am her closest friend and if all her friends are bird-witted twits then that is what you think of me. Thus, you earned that push into the Serpentine.” Her face heated. “Though, in truth, I was quite mortified by my actions as it was uncharacteristic of me. For that I do apologize, Your Grace.” She plopped back down, determined to push the hurt of that day down so deeply that it could not be found again. That was two and a half years ago, and she had moved past the event.
Claybrook swung his legs over the side of the bed, grasped the coverlet, and wrapped it about him before he stood. “Do you honestly believe that I thought you were a bird-witted twit?”
Bethany stood again and threw her hands up. “Of course I did. It is what you said. I heard you.”
Claybrook chuckled. “I meant that gaggle of misses who suddenly surrounded Tessa that season. The ones that were no more than children with their giggling and fanning themselves and always twittering about. Those bird-witted twits. Never you.”
Bethany could only stare at him. Then she recalled that spring and the new debutantes who were in awe of Tessa and wanted to be like her and learn from her. They had nearly driven Bethany mad with their incessant questions and inability to remain on one topic. Tessa found much humor in their presence, though it wasn’t so often…except they did always seem to be underfoot when Claybrook was about. “Is it because of them and their getting in the way that you did not pursue Tessa?”
“Good God, no!” he barked with laughter. “Tessa and I would never suit. Clearly you saw that.”
They had been an odd pairing. “You courted for nearly two months. Certainly, some emotion was involved, unless it was simply to appease her father.”
