Page 105 of An Offer by Her Arranged Duke

It was near that same hour that Penelope and Malcolm Aldridge came across the floor, the duchess moving with the decided warmth of a woman who had already resolved the question of friendship before the introduction. She took Juliet’s hands without ceremony.

“I am Penelope, and we are past formality. How is Eloise? Is she well?”

“She is. She has taken to writing correspondence with her horse.”

Penelope’s face opened into delight. “Letters?”

“The horse does not respond. She finds this unsurprising. She says he is the sort of horse who composes his replies in his head first.”

“I like her enormously.” The Duchess of Brigrock glanced toward her husband, who was saying something to Adam with the easy warmth of two men who had not seen each other in some time and were closing the gap without effort. “Our Nicholas is eight. They should meet.”

“I will suggest it,” Juliet said.

Penelope squeezed her hands once before releasing them. “We heard what you both went through this past winter. I am very glad it ended as it did.”

Juliet met her eyes. “As am I.”

The carriage home moved at an unhurried pace through the late streets, the lantern swinging lightly.

“He has a pony,” Adam said into the dark.

“You are revisiting this.”

“I find it interesting. He struck me as a man with fixed ideas about what constitutes an adequate gesture.”

“He does. He is trying, in the way of a man who does not know how and so begins at the available end.”

“The available end being a pony.”

His hand crossed the seat and closed over hers.

In the bedroom, the maid had left one lamp burning, which was all that was needed, because Adam had her pins out before the door had fully closed.

“You have been very patient this evening,” she said.

“Since the third dance.” He found the hooks at her back. “Honeysett had his hand at your waist for four bars longer than necessary.”

Juliet looked at him over her shoulder. “He was steering.”

“He was taking his time.” His hands spread warm against her back through the open seam of the gown. “I was patient about it.”

“Remarkably,” she said.

She turned. He was looking at her with no armor left in his face at all, the expression she had come to know over four months, the one that still stopped her breath in her throat.

“The third dance,” she said, and put her hands to his lapels.

He kissed her, thorough, unhurried, his hands at her waist, and she pressed her palm to his chest and felt his heartbeat running faster than his composure all evening had suggested. When he drew back, his breathing had shifted.

“You have been patient too,” he said.

“Since we left Clarkston Hall.” She worked his cravat loose. “I had to listen to Viscount Eddington describe improvements to his draining system for twenty full minutes.”

“For twenty minutes.”

“You were fortunate to be speaking with Malcolm.”