***
Derrick was never taking his butler’s advice again.
Go out for a morningstroll,he’d said.
It will help clear yourhead, he’d said.
What Grieves had failed to mention was that the ‘morning stroll’ would turn into a husband-hunting venture with an impossibly naive blonde and three angry geese. If Annalise was truly looking for love, she’d have a better time finding a needlein a haystack. And if one of his friends went looking for him, this was the last place in London they’d ever search.
The Debaucherous Duke wandering through Hyde Park in the early afternoon without a drop of drink or a card game in sight? They’d laugh so hard they’d split their trousers wide open. But Derrick wasn’t laughing. For some inexplicable reason, he was taking his quest with Annalise quite seriously.
One might say almosttooseriously.
“What about that gentleman?” she whispered, pointing discreetly at a parallel walking trail where a trio of young men formed a half circle.
“The chap in the middle?”
“Yes, with the tall hat.”
“He whips his horse,” he said dismissively.
“He does?” she asked, quickly lowering her arm. “How can you tell?”
“I just can.”
Her brow furrowed. “I never would have guessed. What about the man to his left?”
“Yells at children.”
“The one on the right?”
“Has three mistresses he has no intention of giving up when he’s married.”
She sighed loudly. “This is much harder than I anticipated.”
“Could it be because you’re seeking something that does not exist?” he suggested as they resumed walking. His gaze slid to her nape where a golden curl dangled temptingly above folded collar of her pelisse. When his fingertips itched to touch it, he frowned and tucked his hands behind his back.
“What do you mean?” Fishing into her reticule, she procured yet another handful of corn - honestly, how much of it did she have? - and dropped the kernels in a neat row as they traversed a stone bridge littered with tiny yellow petals from a willowtree that overlooked the stream. Throughout the park, all of the foliage was in varying stages of bloom.
There were cherry trees heavy with pink blossoms, colorful clusters of purple bluebells, and sunny daffodils. The air smelled fresh and slightly sweet, like a shirt after it had dried outside in the breeze. Songbirds sang lively tunes as they hopped from branch to branch, bits of twigs and horsehair stuffed in their beaks. Out of the corner of his eye, Derrick spied a brown rabbit as it hopped along the bottom of a hedge beside the willow. It paused, tipped a long ear in their direction, and then darted away.
“I mean,” he drawled, stopping in the middle of the bridge to lean against the parapet with his arms crossed, “love, at least the kind you are describing, does not exist.”
Annalise halted so abruptly that Marcus ran into the back of her with a startled honk. “But of course it does,” she said, her blue eyes filling with sparkling indignation. “Love exists inallforms. The kind between a parent and child, and siblings, and friends. The kind that comes after two people have been together for a long time, and the kind that comes when they’ve only just met.”
“You’re speaking of love at first sight.”
“I am.”
“How can you love someone when you don’t know them?”
She huffed out an impatient breath. “If you read poetry, you’d understand.”
“Why don’t you enlighten me?”
“Close your eyes,” she instructed, and to Derrick’s own amazement, he did. “What do you see?”
“I cannot see anything. My eyes are closed.”
