His laugh under his breath made her stomach flip.
No,she told herself.Do not let yourself react to anything he does. Your focus remains on the stars above, not the ones you have seen in his green eyes, the lamplight catching their color.
It was terribly foolish.
“The truth is, Lady Elinor, I only took my duchy in the last several months, and, as I mentioned, there are many fixes to do. The last thing I need is to be pestered with debutantes and their mamas with their desperate matchmaking schemes. I am trying to set this place right.” He gestured at the office, the building.“And I do not need yet another issue to contend with while I focus on it.”
“Your Grace, if you are trying to improve your reputation, then I am not the lady to help with that.” Her humiliation weighed her tone down, making her scarcely able to get the words out. “I—I am not … conventional, as people say.”
“I have not asked for conventional,” he corrected her. “I have simply asked for a mutual exchange. You were not present at the ball, and your stepmother came up a with a reason on the spot, so I am wondering what the truth is. Did you miss not attending the ball, Lady Elinor?”
She shook her head. “They think it is a punishment for me to stay home—” She clamped her mouth shut, realizing what she had just admitted. “I—I mean?—”
“So, Lady Morland ordered you to stay home?”
“Well … It is not?—”
“Thetruth, Lady Elinor. At this point, it is hardly wise to try and lie to me.”
She bit her lip at first. “She forbade me from attending tonight,” Elinor sighed, knowing there was no point in backtracking now. She was not a good liar. “But it is no punishment.”
The duke looked at her, equal parts curious and amused. She wondered why—how?
“So, you did not mind skipping the ball to teach orphans.” It was not a question, but Elinor nodded anyway. “Then you are just as disinterested in the marriage mart as I am, I assume. From where I am standing, this is a solid opportunity. You do not have to worry about securing a suitor, and I can escape matchmaking altogether. You can remain teaching, and I will protect your secret. If it ever gets out, you will have my protection.”
Elinor’s mind was already working through this, spinning at a thousand thoughts a second, it seemed. “Even if I agree?—”
“Which I know you will. For the children.” He smirked at her again.
“Evenif I do, nobody will believe that I have been able to capture the attention of the Duke of Fairmont.”
“Then we will stage a first meeting in a public place,” he countered, ready to knock down every challenge. “They can see that you will. All in pretense, of course. Then I will start making calls to your house. Even if I have to endure that stepmother and stepsister of yours, so be it.”
At that, Elinor perked up.Finally, somebody else who found them as intolerable as she did.
“Still, nobody will believe it. I am sorry, Your Grace, but I really am not the lady for this choice.”
“Why?”
Elinor laughed. “I do not know if you have ever attended the same ball as I, but I am the ton’s most gossiped-about wallflower. Somebody who is not seen but is talked about for that very reason. No suitor looks at me; no suitor asks me to dance. So, why would a duke be interested in such a lady? The bespectacled wallflower with too much to say at times, and not enough in others? It is too unlikely.”
The duke did not answer her at first. He only did that head tilt again, and Elinor nervously pushed her spectacles up the bridge of her nose. She had developed the habit nervously when they once slid down her nose as she read a particularly complex essay that, at the time, she had not understood.
Ever since, the habit had simply remained when she did not know what to do with her hands, or herself, really.
The duke followed her hand with his eyes. “Lady Elinor, you are the daughter of a marquess. You are educated, intelligent, and … and you are beautiful.”
Elinor scoffed before she could keep the noise back. She cringed but answered anyway. “Your Grace, with the utmost respect, please do not mock me or insult my intelligence.”
She toyed with the fabric of her skirts, restlessly bunching it in her fist. How long did she have left before her family returned home? She looked at the clock, annoyed it showed the wrong time, and she wished she had brought her father’s pocket watch with her, left in the top drawer of her bedroom vanity.
When she still didn’t look at him, she found that a hand raised slowly to her face, as if to draw her focus back to him, but he did not actually touch her. Still, it did what he wanted: her eyes found his once more.
He held her gaze, not quite smirking, but not quite a soft smile, either.
“Do you know what my favorite thing is about ladies like you?” Before Elinor could say anything, he told her, “Making them feel as beautiful as they are, when I know they do not believe it. And do trust me when I say my efforts areverythorough. Lady Elinor, there is a lot of beauty to you, so, as long as it takes to make you believe it, I will be most dedicated.” He flashed her a charming grin, and Elinor tried not to fall for the rakish spell.
I despise men like him,she thought, annoyed, and yet she could not take her eyes off him, could not stop her hands trembling, her heart from pounding.
