Page 37 of The Duke’s Matchmaker

Of course he had. He wasn’t a fool. “You weren’t paying attention to me,” he said grudgingly, not thrilled at having to admit he was learning from her even though that was what he’d wanted all along. It wasn’t easy to admit that anyone knew something he didn’t.

“That’s right.” She didn’t lord it over him. “I wouldn’t give you my attention if I didn’t find you interesting.”

“Not even to be polite?”

“You might find that a lady gave you simple answers to your questions if she had no interest but was trying to be courteous,” Dorothy said. “I might say yes or no if you asked me something, but then not elaborate or ask you a question in return. Now, let’s try it the other way. This time I’ll play the role of a lady who is interested in you.”

She stood up straighter and fixed her gaze on him. She smiled slightly. Not broadly, just a hint of it playing around the corners of her mouth. She had done something different that he couldn’t quite define, too. Her eyes were sparkling. It was as if she’d lit a fire within herself, come alive in some intangible way.

And he could see the difference at once. Of course he could. It was ridiculous, all of a sudden, to imagine that there was any possibility he wouldn’t have recognized this. Of course this was what a lady looked like when she was truly interested. He felt as if there was no one else in the room but the two of them.

“Don’t just stare at me,” she said, and it broke the spell of the moment. “You’ve got to do something. This is the part where you try to engage her interest.”

“If she’s looking at me like that, she’s already interested,” Nathaniel pointed out.

Dorothy sighed. “Yes,” she agreed. “But you’ve got to do more, Nathaniel. You’ve got to let her know that this isn’t just a dance. You have to make her believe that she has a reason to hope you might offer her something more—a courtship, in this case.”

“So, this is the part where I tell her that?”

“No. You can’t just tell her that, you’ve got to be charming. Flirt with me.”

Nathaniel felt frozen. Flirt with her? This was the very thing he didn’t know how to do, and he was certain that if he tried, he would only end up making a fool of himself, which he didn’t want.

But he had come here to learn this skill, after all. This was what he’d asked her to do for him. It would be a fine thing if he just refused to cooperate now.

“I don’t know what to do,” he admitted, feeling a little ashamed.

She nodded. “I figured. That’s all right. You can start by paying me a compliment. That’s a good way to break the ice.”

He paused, thinking for a moment. “Your gown is lovely.”

He felt foolish at once, but Dorothy smiled. “That’s a good one,” she said. “It lets a lady know that you’ve been looking at her, and that’s important, but also that you think she has good taste. It’s two compliments in one.”

“You’re blushing,” he told her.

She really was blushing. That hadn’t been a part of his flirtation. But she nodded in approval. “Very good,” she said. “You might be a natural at this after all.”

“Wait. How was that good?”

“You’re not letting me get away with anything,” she explained. “You’re letting me know that you know your words had an impact on me, so that I can’t pretend otherwise. It’s very clever of you.”

“I didn’t mean to do that,” he confessed.

“Then you’re better at this than you think you are.”

He wondered whether her blush had been real. Was it possible she’d forced it somehow to see how he would respond, as a test? That seemed hard to believe, and yet she was certainly taking his reaction in stride, as if she’d expected or even hoped for it.

He had to know, suddenly, how real this was. He reached up and brushed the tips of his fingers against her cheek to see whether it was warm.

It was. Scorching.

She went still as he touched her. He could feel the tension in her body. She was staring into his eyes, and she sucked in a breath.

Nathaniel felt sure, suddenly, that nothing about what was happening here was a posture. It never had been. She was blushing because, quite simply, he had caused her to blush. He had caused her to feel something.

Maybe she was right. Maybe he really was better at flirting than either of them had originally thought.

Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment, and he found himself noticing her long lashes. They brushed against her cheek. His heart beat faster. He pictured himself giving her a compliment about that, telling her how beautiful she looked when she closed her eyes like that. It wasn’t the kind of thing she’d expect him to say. Would it make her blush even more? Would she think that compliment compared favorably with the one about her gown? Or…