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She smiled against his chest, feeling something settle deep and warm inside her, and let herself drift off to sleep.

CHAPTER 22

Vauxhall Gardens at night is precisely the sort of spectacle designed to make me forget every worry I walked in with.

Lanterns were strung between the trees in glowing rows. There must have been hundreds, casting the whole promenade in warm, flickering golden light.

Laura walked arm in arm with Nathaniel. Somewhere ahead, an orchestra played a lively tune, and couples danced in the open pavilion.

She could not help but smile.

The air smelled of hot wax and crushed grass and the sweet tang of fresh oranges sold from a cart near the entrance. Laughter carried from every direction and swirled around them. She watched ladies in bright silks strolling together, gentlemen trailing after them with longing eyes.

“You’re staring,” Nathaniel said close to her ear, his hand warm on the small of her back as he guided her along the gravel path.

“I’ve never been here before,” she admitted. “My father always said it was vulgar.”

“Evidently, your father has never known how to enjoy anything in his life. I wouldn’t take his opinion on vulgarity as truth,” he drawled, and they both laughed.

“There you two are,” Everett said, emerging from the crowd with Kitty on his arm. He looked resplendent in a coat the color of a peacock’s tail feathers, an outfit only he could have gotten away with.

Laura shook her head and laughed at the sight.

“Good evening, Lord Seymour, Kitty,” she greeted as she approached her friend. “Fancy seeing the two of you together.”

“Good evening, Your Graces,” Everett said, ignoring her remark. “I was beginning to think you’d gotten lost in the Dark Walk, and I did not fancy sending a search party.”

“Someone has been reading too much Thomas Brown,” Nathaniel scoffed. “We are perfectly capable of finding our own way, Everett.”

“Are you? Because your wife has the look of a woman who’s never smelled an orange tart in her life, and if you don’t buy her one in the next five minutes, I shall be forced to do it myself and steal all the credit.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Nathaniel said, a smile pulling at the corner of his lips.

“I would like an orange tart very much,” Laura admitted.

Kitty laughed, tugging her arm free of Everett’s to loop it through Laura’s. “Go on, then, Your Grace,” she said to Nathaniel with a wide smile. “I’ll steal your wife for a turnabout in the gardens while you men do whatever it is men do at these things. I suppose you just glower at each other and discuss horses?”

“Something like that,” Nathaniel replied, his eyes fixed on Laura.

She was secretly thrilled, knowing that he was a little reluctant to let her go even for the length of a stroll. She squeezed his hand once before Kitty pulled her away.

Even with her back turned, she could feel his eyes following her until the crowd swallowed her.

“Well,” Kitty began as she steered them off the main promenade onto a quieter path lined with rose hedges, the crowd's noise softening behind them. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a man look quite so reluctant to let a woman out of his sight for a mere ten minutes. It’s rather revolting, actually.”

“Kitty!” Laura gasped, jabbing her friend playfully in the ribs.

“I would like to be looked at like that sometime.”

“I do believe that Lord Seymour looks at you exactly that way,” she noted. “I was most surprised to see you two together.”

“I was coming to find you, and there he was,” Kitty said, lifting a hand to her cheek. “That is all.”

“If you say so,” Laura drawled. “You would do well to notice his interest.”

“I refuse to notice it, because the moment I do, he’ll become insufferable about it as men often do.” Kitty tucked a stray curl behind her ear, her cheeks faintly pink. “So… Last we spoke, you were still unsure about the whole business with your Duke. You look different tonight. Lighter. Brighter.”

“I feel different.” Laura looked at the fountains ahead, silver in the lantern light. “I think I spent so long bracing myself against him, waiting for the arrangement to reveal itself as the cold transaction I’d assumed it would be, that I nearly missed the moment it stopped being that.”