Chapter Five
Golden puddles of light scattered across the patterned rug and glinted off the crystal decanters on a small mahogany table beneath the window.Bea sat alone on the settee in her second-floor sitting room, her slippered feet crossed at the ankles, a small fire crackling in the grate.The silence felt indulgent, like an hour stolen from expectations.
The guests were long gone.They’d left over an hour ago.She’d kept to her suite.Hoping her father hadn’t gotten word about her little war of words with Lord Hargrave.Father didn’t like it when she angered his friends.No matter how correct she was.
Winston didn’t fear scandal.He feared losing control of the story—and in Parliament, story was power.
She tried to focus on that familiar dread…the predictable consequences, the inevitable lecture.
Instead, her thoughts strayed to Nicholas Archer.
What had he been about earlier?First rushing to her aid in the conversation with Hargrave and then following her out onto the veranda?Not to mention he’d looked quite unfair in his evening coat.The fit had been indecently perfect, the charcoal gray emphasizing the breadth of his shoulders, the taper of his waist.And that expression—half amusement, half challenge—when he’d parried her every verbal thrust with maddening ease.A gentleman had no business being that clever while also looking as if he’d just strode off the cover of a gothic novel, all dark eyes and restrained power.
And it wasn’t merely tonight.Lately, he’d developed an irritating habit of…hovering.Not overtly—Nicholas Archer never did anything so gauche—but in little ways that suggested a man intent on garnering her good opinion.As if she were the sort of woman whose favor could be courted with a few well-placed rescues and an exquisitely tailored coat.Then there had been the flowers a fortnight ago.Peonies, of all things.Not roses or lilies or anything with a sensible message attached.Peonies…riotous, blousy, impossible-to-read blooms.As if anything meaningful could be divined from peonies.As if she were meant to search for significance in petals when the man himself remained the most confounding puzzle of all.
Bea let out a low groan and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes.Why was it that the man most in need of being taken down a peg was also the one with an impossibly sculpted mouth and a voice like warm brandy?
She was still scowling at the fire when the door swung open and her mother swept into the room, all elegance and pale green silk.In her forties, the duchess was the picture of refined beauty—tall, fair-haired, and radiant in that effortless way that had once made her the diamond of her debut Season.Her golden hair, braided and loosely knotted for the night, gleamed in the firelight as she glided to the nearest chair with the grace of a woman born to command a room simply by entering it.
Her father followed, just as striking in his own right.The duke’s dark hair, touched handsomely with silver at the temples, was immaculate—as was the deep navy of his coat.He too possessed that long, aristocratic frame, all straight lines and crisp precision, as though he had been carved from a single block of dignity.The fact that he chose to remain standing—broad shoulders squared, expression unreadable—was never a good sign.
“There you are, Beatrix,” Mother began delicately.Mother was usually delicate.
“We heard about the incident with Lord Hargrave,” Father interjected, his voice booming.
“Oh?”Bea tilted her head, playing at innocence.It was usually best this way.
“He said you were...dismissive,” Father barked.“Rude even.”
“I was not rude,” Bea countered, nostrils flaring.“I simply believed that if he insisted on speaking foolishly, he ought to experience the consequence of doing so.”
Her mother’s mouth flattened.“Oh, Beatrix?—”
“Bea,” she corrected automatically.
“Enough.”Father stepped forward, his face a mask of stone.“We’ve indulged your...whimsical tendencies for long enough.It’s long past time you began thinking seriously about your prospects.I won’t have the daughter of the Duke of Winston dismissed as a wallflower?—”
“That’s what Lord Hargrave called you, Bea,” Mama said, an unmistakable thread of worry in her voice.“Awallflower.”
“Iama wallflower,” Bea agreed with a wide smile.
Mama gasped.
“Enough,” Father thundered again.“The fact that you’re calling yourself a wallflower tells me I’ve made the right decision.”
Her mother winced, while panic spread through Bea’s stomach, rising, choking, threatening to spill over into something dangerously close to fear.
“What do you mean?”she forced out, even as her pulse hammered its own warning.She glanced back and forth between her parents’ tight faces.
“It is high time we took action,” Father continued, his voice filling the room.“You shall be courted.Formally.”
Bea’s stomach dipped.She pressed a hand against it.Oh, God.She’d really done it this time.Hadn’t she?She’d gone too far in front of the wrong man.Everyone knew Hargrave was a complete horse’s ass.
“Courted?”she echoed.“Formally?”But she already knew what her father would say next.
Her mother looked away, her brows pinched with a deep, quiet distress she was trying—and failing—to hide.
Father didn’t hesitate.“Yes.Courted.By Lord Vanover.This Season.”
