“Thatone was on you—” she started, ready to defend herself, but then a new thought intruded. “How are you here?”
He’d set her feet on the floor but she kept her hands on his shoulders, needing the solid feeling of him.
His hands were loosely around her waist. “Elise, I have something to confess.”
She didn’t like the hesitation in his voice. It warned her that she might not like this confession.
“My full name is Christopher Fitzhugh-Cox.”
Elise gave a small shrug. Kit Cox. His namecame from there. He also acted as if she should recognize him by it. She didn’t.
“I’m the Duke of Winderton.”
She was uncertain she’d heard him correctly. Her initial euphoria at uniting with him was settling down. Awareness of her surroundings returned.
They were the center of attention. Instead of everyone being gathered around the duke in the doorway, they now circled the dance floor.
Everyone.Even her family.
And the musicians had stopped playing so that, into the stillness, they had all heard what he’d said about his name.
No one corrected him.
Elise glanced over to Gwendolyn and Dara. Tweedie stood beside them. The three of them appeared thunderstruck, and Elise didn’t know what to do, what to think. Kit? A duke?
Theyoungduke?
Her Kit had another identity.
He also seemed to grow aware of how exposed they were. He took action. He reached for her hand and, before she could protest, started toward the doors leading to the back garden.
Kit moved so swiftly she almost had to skip to keep up.
Outside, torches provided a flickering golden light. There was no one with them. Everyone in attendance had been inside to witness the arrival of the famed missing Duke of Winderton. Nowthey all packed around the doors as if they were watching the most entertaining of plays.
Thankfully, they stayed in the house, and if Elise turned her back to them, she could pretend that she and Kit were somewhat private.
“It is starting,” he said.
“Starting?”
He combed a frustrated hand through his newly trimmed hair. “The attention, the gossips.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry for this, Elise.” He made an exasperated sound. “It is part of my life in London. You can see how my behaving badly would make me the focus of the wrong sort of attention. I entertained the gossips for months.”
“And made you wish to escape like Prince Hal?”
He straightened his shoulders. “Not the most mature reaction,” he admitted.
Although certainly an imaginative one. She studied him, trying to see him with new eyes... and yet, he was still Kit to her.
Or was he?
“Why didn’t you tell me who you were?” she asked.
“Would you have believed me?” he countered.
Elise thought back to the handsome Ruffian, to the smell of liquor on his breath and the way he had dressed. “No.”
“Would you believe anything I told you if you had known I was keeping my identity secret?”
