He nodded once. “You looked happy watching your sisters.”
Her chest softened at the observation. “I was happy,” she admitted quietly. “They are thriving, Victor. Truly thriving.”
He looked ahead thoughtfully. “Good.”
Charlotte studied him for a moment before speaking again. “You saved us,” she said softly. “I do not think I have thanked you enough for that.”
Victor’s expression shifted almost imperceptibly at her words. “You owe me no gratitude,” he replied. “I merely kept my word.”
“Yes,” she said gently. “But you kept it kindly.”
Something flickered across his face then, something dangerously tender that made her breath catch. Victor suddenly stopped walking beside a hedge of pale roses and turned fully toward her. “Charlotte,” he said quietly.
Her pulse stumbled at the tone of his voice. “Yes?”
“You are looking at me like that again.”
She blinked innocently. “Like what?”
“Like I am something far better than I deserve to be.” His hand lifted slowly, brushing lightly against her cheek.
Charlotte’s heart thudded hard in her chest as his gaze darkened upon her face. “That is a dangerous habit for a woman married to a man like me.”
She swallowed hard. “And what sort of man is that?”
Victor’s thumb traced softly along her jaw. “One who is beginning to think he would do anything to keep that look in your eyes.”
Victor approached the cluster of gentlemen gathered beneath the striped pavilion with the easy confidence expected of a duke, though inwardly he already regretted leaving Charlotte’s side. Laughter rolled through the group as glasses clinked together while servants circulated with trays of punch and champagne. The garden party stretched brightly around them beneath the afternoon sun, filled with ladies twirling parasols and gossip drifting like smoke through the air. Yet Victor found the entire event considerably less interesting now that his wife was not standing beside him, blushing at his teasing.
“Ah, there he is,” Morgan Harding declared the moment he spotted Victor approaching. The Marquess of Whitemore lounged carelessly against one of the pavilion poles with a glass dangling from his fingers and mischief already glittering in his eyes. “The newly tamed beast himself.” Several gentlemen chuckled while Victor merely sighed inwardly.
“Morgan,” Victor greeted dryly.
Morgan grinned broadly. “Victor, I have not seen you since the wedding,” he said dramatically. “Tell me, how are you finding marriage?”
Victor accepted a glass of punch from a passing servant before answering coolly.
“It is not all as bad as I thought it would be,” he replied. “Nothing has changed.”
Morgan’s brows shot upward with theatrical disbelief. “Nothing?” he repeated. He leaned closer with a conspiratorial grin. “In that case, care to join me at the pleasure gardens this evening? These garden parties are dull affairs riddled with treasure hunters and desperate mamas.”
Victor raised one brow slowly. “No,” he answered flatly.
Morgan blinked. “No, to which part?” Victor sipped his drink calmly. “All of it.” That earned him several interested looks from the surrounding gentlemen.
“I have no interest in the gardens,” Victor continued.
Silence fell for precisely one beat before Morgan burst into delighted laughter. “Oh, things have changed,” Morgan announced triumphantly. “Even though you said they had not.”
Victor already regretted walking over to this conversation.
“You,” Morgan continued dramatically while pointing at him with his glass, “are yet another victim of the ball and chain.” One of the gentlemen muttered something about never expecting to hear those words attached to the Duke of Mulford.
Victor finished the rest of his punch in one swallow before setting the empty glass aside. “I am going to find refreshment,” he announced. “Preferably somewhere far away from you.”
Morgan laughed loudly behind him. “Do bring your duchess back when you return,” he called after him. “You smile more when she is nearby.”
Victor very nearly ignored that statement.
