Chapter 12 #2
“Thank you for the sweet again, Your Grace,” Daphne said. “Our mother didn’t even want her to come here, and now, we got some free sweets!”
“It’s only fair, aye,” he replied with mock seriousness. “I admit ye startled me half to death, comin’ in like a whirlwind like that.”
“You don’t look dead,” Victoria complained.
“Ah, but that’s because I’m very good at tricks,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper, his eyes darting back to Elizabeth once more.
“Lizzie, can we please browse the shop now?” Victoria whined. “Our five minutes will be up soon.”
“Oh, no!” Daphne gasped, “Please Lizzie? With sugar and cinnamon on top?”
“Go on ahead you two. Make it quick. And only one piece for each of you, or we won’t hear the end of it from your mother,” Elizabeth urged with a gentle but playful shove at their shoulders.
“Good day, Your Grace!” Daphne snuck in a proper curtsy, which made the Duke chuckle.
“Ta-ta, Highland trickster!” Victoria exclaimed from behind her shoulder and Elizabeth opened her mouth to remind her proper etiquette, but the girl was already gone between the sweet shop’s aisles.
The Duke chuckled again, a bit louder this time. The warm, deep sound left echoes across her body, echoes which swiftly turned into tingles and heat.
After Daphne followed her twin, Elizabeth turned back to the Duke.
“Thank you for indulging my sisters, Your Grace. They can be a handful. Double the trouble,” Elizabeth said softly, clearing her throat and failing miserably to contain her smile.
“It takes a skilled hand to manage wee terrors. Ye’re doin’ a fine job, me lady,” he praised.
“But what are you doing in a sweet shop?” she asked, genuinely curious.
While she wouldn’t have been surprised to see him in a spirit shop, the big, towering Scottish duke felt out of place in a sweet shop.
“Sweet tooth,” he replied simply, his eyes ogling the macarons and lemon drops.
The sight almost had Elizabeth giggling. It was not what she expected from him at all. Then, again, he seemed to be full of surprises. He was, as he said, different, indeed.
“With your size, I would imagine you looking to buy meat pies, Your Grace.”
“Och, ye wound me, Lady Elizabeth. A man needs a wee bit of sweetness too, especially when he’s tryin’ to survive a Highland winter.” Then his eyes sparkled mischievously as he added, “Though I’m thinkin’ ye’re tryin’ to flatter me, me lady. And it’s working better than ye’d like.”
Elizabeth’s cheeks flamed hotter, and she hastily looked away, voice barely steady. “I—I was just speaking plainly.”
Elizabeth scanned for the twins. They had already scurried to the back of the shop with their governess, even though she could still hear them arguing about which toffees to buy.
Alasdair, meanwhile, did not look like he was in a hurry. Instead, he leaned casually against the counter as he watched her avidly, and not entirely unlike the way he watched the macarons.
After Daphne darted after her sister, Elizabeth turned back to the Duke.
“Thank you for—for charming my ‘wee terrors’, Your Grace,” she said and glanced over her shoulder.
Victoria and Daphne were deep in negotiations at the back of the shop, with their governess struggling to keep order.
“Perhaps I wish some practice at charming ye, me Lady,” he replied with a grin. “I can see the likeness between ye and them as well.”
She arched a brow. “Because we’re all so well-behaved?”
He chuckled softly. “I see both sides of ye in them. The careful, proper one like Daphne, and the fiery, headstrong one like Victoria. Seems they’re little reflections of ye, each carrying a piece of yer fire.”
Elizabeth blinked, caught off guard by his insight.
No one had ever put it quite like that before, like she was more than just awkwardness or expectation.
Yes, Daphne had been compared to her often, but Victoria…
Everyone assumed Victoria mirrored Wilhelmina.
But that wasn’t quite true. Wilhelmina was sharp-tongued and clever, a creature of reason and words.
Victoria, though… Victoria was something else entirely.
She was a goblin of a girl: pure instinct, all wild sparks and mischief. Not calculated like Wilhelmina. Not cautious like Daphne and Elizabeth. Just fire and trouble wrapped in ribbons.
And the Duke had seen that.
What else was he likely to see?
Meanwhile, the Duke looked in no rush. He leaned lazily against the polished counter, his gaze not on the sweets now, but on her. Intent, unreadable, a touch amused.
He wasn’t just full of surprises.
He was beginning to feel like one.
“I saw ye at the musicale, chattin’ with some lords,” he murmured. “I must say, ye did quite well. The men looked right pleased with yer words.”
“Thank you, Your Grace,” she said, blushing even as she tried not to feel embarrassed. “It’s nothing.”
He was only watching to see how you’d perform. Merely part of the deal, she reminded herself.
“Ye did well with four lords, both young and old. That’s nae small feat, Lady Elizabeth.”
His eyes seemed sincere, the mischief gone from there. Her chest hurt for many reasons. She was grateful for his help, but also confused as to what direction this “improvement” would be leading her to.
“It’s hardly a great feat. I am merely catching up. Most women have excelled at what I am only now grasping,” she said earnestly.
“Ye’re gettin’ better quicker than I thought, aye,” he said with a husky voice.
He confused her with that tone. It was teasing one moment, then edged with something almost sharp, almost angry.
It sent a shiver across her skin. His presence was too large, too near, crowding the space and her thoughts.
She couldn’t breathe properly around him, not without feeling every inch of him pressing into the air between them.
“You’re making it sound like a training course, Your Grace,” she said lightly, though her breath caught as she spoke.
His mood had shifted again—playful one moment, intense the next—and it was starting to make her feel off-balance.
She busied her hands with smoothing her sleeves, a small act of deflection. Then, reaching for a dish of sugared violets, she studied them far too intently.
On any other day, they might have held her genuine interest. Today, they simply gave her something to look at that wasn’t him.
But of course, he wasn’t finished with her.
“Ye owe me a lesson, now, lass,” he murmured, his voice low and thick.
“You’ll have to be more specific, Your Grace,” she returned, trying for nonchalance, though her pulse skipped. “It seems like I owe you more than one thing.”
His brow arched slowly at that, and his eyes, too green, too watchful, flicked to her mouth.
It was a mistake, she realized, to mention debts.
A bigger mistake to imagine what it might feel like to offer something freely.
“Ye remember. I need a lesson in proper civility,” he went on, his voice roughened by humor, or something darker.
“We struck a bargain, did we not? A lesson for a lesson. Ye’ll teach me to impress the lords and ladies of yer fine city, and I’ll teach ye how to drive a man mad without liftin’ a finger.
Though I’d say ye’re already halfway there. ”
“I’ve not forgotten,” she replied, her voice barely above a whisper as she delicately picked up a sugared lemon peel, her movements precise, deliberate.
She could feel his gaze track her fingers, and her skin burned under the attention.
“However,” she added, “you do choose the strangest settings for etiquette instruction. A sweet shop?”
He grinned. “It’s perfect, when ye think about it. Ye’re teachin’ me sweet lies among sweeter things.” Then his voice dipped further. “Though ye’ve still not taken me up on the offer to learn in private. My house, remember?”
She suppressed a shiver and rolled her eyes instead, though her lips betrayed her with a smile, far too bold for the demure young lady she was meant to be.
“I’m afraid we’re not at that point yet, Your Grace,” she spoke slowly, “Now, about your lesson. What manner of man are you trying to approach?”
“Lord Farnleigh,” he said, and the name came out like something bitter.
“White hair, thin as a ghost, with a bent back and a snivel that never stops. Like he’s sniffin’ out trouble wherever he goes.
Whitton says the man thinks anyone born outside London’s a savage, and the Scots worst of them all.
Proud as a rooster and twice as loud, always complainin’ that good manners are dyin’ out. ”
Elizabeth raised her brows, amused despite herself. “You seem to know quite a lot about him.”
“I make it a point to study my enemies, lass,” he said, a flash of something more serious flickering behind the green.
There was something raw beneath his words, something she didn’t yet understand, but wanted to.
“Unfortunately, the type is common in London society,” Elizabeth said dryly. “Men like Lord Farnleigh expect to be approached with deference. They want to be admired, never challenged. And while your title matters to them, the fact that you are not English diminishes it in their eyes.”
The Duke’s lip curled. “Floggin’ seems a kinder fate than bowin’ to that man.”
“I don’t disagree,” she said with a small, rueful smile.
“But what I did at the musicale, flattering Huntington’s nonsense, pretending to enjoy myself, wasn’t far off.
Women are expected to smile, agree, admire.
If we are too clever or too bold, we’re dismissed.
You cannot challenge men like Lord Farnleigh, not in public.
Offend one, and you offend them all. That’s how power works in a room full of pride. ”
He sighed in exasperation. “I see yer point.”
“Come then,” she said, straightening and slipping into a more formal tone. “Let’s begin. Imagine I am Lord Farnleigh. We are at an event. You see me across the room. You approach. What do you say?”
She lifted her chin, her posture impeccable, eyes assessing him like a proper peer of the realm.