Chapter 6
Chapter Six
S amuel’s favorite day of the week dawned bright and clear, and as his sisters bounded out the door and onto the street in front of him, bundled in bright, warm plumage, he focused on his target.
Meet the widow in Hyde Park, learn more about her, enjoy his sisters’ company, and ignore Lady Emma. Every target easy to hit.
June bounded ahead as she usually did, strands of her dark hair already falling from beneath her bonnet. Gertrude and Felicity walked arm in arm, whispering with bright red cheeks. What did they talk about? Should it concern him? Were they in need? Could he help them in some way? He hunched into his greatcoat and shook the questions off. They were happy in the moment. Only that mattered.
At the edge of the square, June had stopped. It appeared as if she’d run right into a mirror. Another form—dressed brightly and of the exact same height—stood before her like a reflection. Both figures were stiff, and he quickened his pace. Foe or friend? Should he step in or hang back?
Questions he never had answers for. So, he watched instead, keeping a steady eye on the two girls. But the duo soon turned into an entire army of richly colored winter skirts. How many? His three, then… one, two, three others and… Lady Emma.
He sped up now, joining the group and tipping his hat to Lady Macintosh, who was joining, too. Eight women and him. All was right in the world.
“Good afternoon, Your Grace,” Lady Macintosh said. “I hope you do not mind. When Emma told me she planned to join you and the girls in Hyde Park this afternoon, I knew I must accompany you as well. And bring the girls. Have you met Lady Emma’s younger sisters?”
Ah. That’s right. The sisters. He’d quite forgotten about the little stars clinging to the moon maiden’s glow.
He plucked the thought, the image of Lady Emma drenched in moonlight, and tossed it away. “I’ve not. But I would be honored if you introduced me.”
“Line up, line up.” Lady Macintosh arranged the girls in a redheaded, blue-eyed row. “Now, the youngest is Lady Diana.” The girl dropped a curtsy. “And this is Lady Briar.” Another curtsy from the girl the same height, and likely age, as June. “Finally, we have Lady Glenna, who is almost of age to have a Season. I hope to have her back in London soon to help her find a husband.”
“I would like to have that honor.” Lady Emma stood to the side of her sisters, pride softening the lines of her face.
She appeared different today, dressed in a shade of blue so dark it flirted with black. No frills anywhere, nothing fashionable about her. Next to the other ladies, her mantle and bonnet would make her disappear. If not for her face, her shape. Did she have blue-black embroidery on the cuffs of her sleeve? Along her hem? Because her gloves the last time they’d met had taught him she hid rich surprises about her person.
She caught him studying her, and her brows jumped up her forehead. To look away would be to suggest he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t. So, he held her gaze, gave her a nod, a tip of his hat, then left the brim low to hide his eyes and hunched more deeply into the collar of his greatcoat.
“So many sisters,” he grumbled.
Somehow, she was right by him now, her skirts flirting with his greatcoat, her voice low and laced with humor. “A veritable plague.”
He tipped the brim of his hat back, caught her gaze, found himself grinning, easy and free. “Just so. A plague much to be wished for.”
“Just so.” She returned the grin, the kissable corners of her lips tipped up as she drifted away from him. As if she’d never been close, as if the exchange had happened out of time. Every good moment with her happened out of time.
He turned sharply toward the park. “Come along.” He didn’t watch to see if they followed, but soon, he felt June step in line with him. They walked in a silence he wished he knew how to break. Of all his sisters, he felt most comfortable with June. She’d been so young when he’d stopped being her brother and begun to be her guardian. Lottie, Andromeda, Prudence—they’d been his friends first. What a change it had been to learn another way of being around them. What a damned difficult wall to erect between them. But June… she’d been three when their parents had died. Did she even remember them? His mother should have comforted June after nightmares, but Samuel had. His father should have taught her how to ride a horse. But Samuel had. He’d swung her in circles to make her laugh, and he’d secretly taught her the best insults to swing at the earl’s son across the square who liked to pull her hair.
She was, in many ways, his, and by God, he’d carve out the heart of any man who hurt her.
Years yet before that happened. Thank God.
“Samuel?” she said as Hyde Park came into view. Her voice was high and sweet and contained a bit of mischief. Every bit of her contained a bit of mischief.
“Yes, Juney?”
“About this widow.”
“What do you know about Lady Huxley?” His sisters had been talking. Naturally.
“Do you like her?”
“She’s agreeable.”
“Bah.” She kicked a rock and shoved her hands inside her mantle.
“Juney. I must take a wife.” And he had few choices, but June didn’t know that. He sighed. “Yes, I quite like her.” Not a lie, just not an answer to June’s actual question.
“I think you should ask Lady Emma for help.”
“Help with what?” He glanced over his shoulder. Seven women of a variety of ages streamed out behind him like a parade of velvet and ribbons set to the tune of happy chattering. Lady Emma walked at the very back alongside Felicity, her head bent toward the younger girl, her expression serious as Felicity’s lips flew fast and animated.
He choked a grin away. Felicity talked more quickly than anyone he’d ever met. Hopefully, Lady Emma could listen just as quickly.
“Samuuuueeeel.” June dragged her feet and hung her arms.
“Juuuun-eeeey.”
She slapped his arm. “Let Lady Emma help. You already like her.”
“Like her?” He may have said that a bit too loudly. “Like her? I barely know her.” There. A more reasonable tone that time.
“You were teasing each other earlier. Do not pretend otherwise. I saw it.”
“We were being polite.”
“You do not tease. Anyone.”
“I tease you.” He knocked his elbow into her arms, tilting her sideways for one step.
“But no one else. Ever. Until this morning. Until Lady Emma.”
He shrugged. “She has sisters. I have sisters. We commiserate.”
“Hm.”
“I do not need a matchmaker, Juney.” He inserted just enough discipline into the words that she might actually heed them. “I’ve already found my match.”
“Then let me meet the widow.” She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest.
“You will. Soon, no doubt.”
“By meet, I mean interrogate .”
He allowed himself a chuckle. “No doubt. You’d terrify her within an inch of her life, little beetle, and discover every one of her secrets.” But no need. He already knew everything that mattered about her—he couldn’t ruin her through marriage, through possible scandal in every opened book.
June stuck her tongue out, and after looking about, Samuel stuck his tongue out in return. She laughed, then hurried across the street and into the park.
“Be careful!” Samuel roared. June raised her hand and waved. She’d heard him. Whether she obeyed him was another matter. She’d have to tame her ways soon. Felt like a needle carving up his heart in slow, tiny slices.
He must focus on the target. Yes. He was already enjoying his sisters and already ignoring Lady Emma. Now to find Lady Huxley. He slowed down as he searched the park in either direction as far as he could see. The ladies of his party meandered toward the most crowded bit of the park, Felicity surreptitiously pointing at various people. Various men . Lady Emma turned wherever Felicity pointed, considered, then pulled a tiny book and pencil from her reticule and bent over to scribble tiny notes.
What did she write there? How much would it differ from his old, abandoned observations? Curiosity felt like an itch at the back of his neck he could not reach because of his cursed cravat.
“Your Grace!” The voice swung him around. Lady Huxley hurried his way. “You were looking for me, I hope.”
“We had an engagement to meet here. Naturally.”
“You have a large party with you today,” she said. “I thought this would be a more intimate outing.”
“My sisters and I walk in the park together on the same day and at the same time every week.” It had begun as a way of getting his grieving sisters outside, a means of pouring sunshine on them, and hoping it decimated their shadows. A way to make them laugh. And live. Now he did it more for himself. Up ahead, Lottie and Andromeda and Prudence congregated, welcoming Felicity and Gertrude with hugs. And soon the twins would arrive. And for a few hours, it would be him and them once more, the colorful center of his entire damn world.
“Do you have brothers or sisters?” he asked.
“A brother. We’re not terribly close.”
“Your parents are still living?”
“Yes. We’re not terribly close, either. We’re all an independent lot. Would rather be about our own business than worried about others.”
“Ah. Sensible.” Or cold.
“I am glad you understand.”
“But you do not feel… lonely?”
“I adore solitude.” She laughed. “You are frowning again.” Another laugh when he snapped his face into a more agreeable expression.
“It is only that I suppose I would be lonely without my sisters.” And were his parents still living, he’d… No. A bad path, that. “Your stepson… are you close to him?”
“Heavens, no.” She wrinkled her nose. “We rarely speak. He was eighteen when I married his father. We never had much reason to become acquainted. He did apologize to me once, said he was terribly sorry that whatever child I had would not be his father’s heir. But I knew that when I married Huxley.”
“Your marriage… was it a happy one? I am sorry for your loss.”
“Oh, none of that.” She laughed. “It was a marriage like any other. Nothing more nor less. We rubbed along quite nicely until he died.”
Was Lady Huxley supremely cold? Or supremely practical? “I am glad he left you in agreeable circumstances.”
“Oh, yes. That is most important. I need not take a husband until I am ready.”
Samuel swallowed. This was his moment. “Are you ready?” The words sounded forced. Because they were. It had felt like shaping words around a boulder shoved into his mouth.
She tilted her head and considered him through lowered lashes. “I dare say I am.”
What now? He’d never gotten this close before.
Ahead of them on the path, laughter lifted into the sky. Felicity. She’d thrown her head back, and the man standing next to her looked slack-jawed, enraptured, as Samuel’s sister showed her soul with that laugh.
Beside and slightly apart from Felicity, Lady Emma scribbled in her notebook, her lips curved up so slightly maybe only Samuel could see it.
“Your Grace,” Lady Huxley said, “if you do not mind me saying it, I am surprised you have not married by now. It would have made marrying off your sisters a much simpler task.”
“I’ve been looking for the right woman.” His steps hitched. Damn. He’d not meant to speak the truth, but the words had come tumbling out.
“Do you think you’ll ever find her?”
Lady Emma snapped her tiny notebook closed and pocketed it. She stuck the miniscule pencil behind her ear and clasped her hands before her as if quite pleased.
He forced himself to face Lady Huxley. “I know I will.” It was the one target he could not miss.
“May I ask another possibly impertinent question, Your Grace?”
He nodded.
“What kind of woman will she be? And… what kind of union can she expect?”
She also liked to aim for the target, no distractions, no meandering and gathering information that might be useless. That, at least, they had in common. “She must like my sisters. She must produce an heir. She must be… able to survive whatever… difficulties life tosses her way.” Scandals, banishment from the best homes, whispers behind backs. She must be able to live without social approval. Fortunately, Lady Huxley seemed just the sort. No firm relationships with husband or family of any kind. She liked to exist, it seemed, on her own.
“You are not searching, then, for a love match?”
“Few are. And I am not among them.”
“Your eyebrows tell a different story.”
Bloody hell. He reached up to smooth out the crease between them. “I… my eyebrows. They should be hidden by my hat.” Who said things like that? He cleared his throat. “I am not in search of love. As you are aware, I have other priorities.”
She set her sights on their walking feet, burrowing her arms deeper into her fur muff. “You side with us pragmatists, then.” She flashed him a smile. “Because you must, not because you wish to. Do you think such an arrangement will suit you , though?” She leaned closer, lowered her voice. “There is fun to be had in it, but not if one half of the partnership is… moping.”
“Moping?” Him?
She nodded.
“I’m not moping. I’m perfectly agreeable with the arrangement we might form.” He grinned, and she winced, rearing away from him. Perhaps he had not grinned after all? He snapped his lips back over his teeth. How could he be so bloody bad at this?
“You look less agreeable and more… constipated.”
He choked, tripped, had to right himself. How in hell did one respond to that? My bowels are in perfect running order, thank you very much. Why not? Lady Huxley had chucked the rules right into the Serpentine.
Ahead of them, Felicity laughed once more, and Lady Emma backed off the path. She sat on a bench situated in the shade of a large oak, snagged the pencil from behind her ear, retrieved her notebook from her pocket, and set to scribbling once more.
What, though? Something about a match for Felicity? He’d promised not to interfere, but he could not snuff out a strong vein of curiosity. He’d spent many hours pondering the mysteries of courtship, and this woman professed to have the light that would illuminate it.
“Pardon me, Lady Huxley. I see a… family friend, and I must speak with her.”
“Very well.”
“I look forward to our next conversation.” He was wavering off course. But the wind would pull him where it wished, it seemed. And frankly, he’d rather not discuss matters better left in a chamber pot. He bowed and headed for the bench.
Lady Emma did not notice his approach. She bent over the notebook in complete concentration, curving her back into a lovely C shape. What would it look like stripped of pelisse, gown, stays, shift? The knotty indentations of each vertebrae charting a path for a man’s hands to explore.
There went his loins again. Christ. His control seemed to have taken a holiday.
She grunted, shook her head, and scratched something out, then set to scribbling once more.
He stopped behind her, leaning to peer over her shoulder, catch a few words. But her bonnet blocked it all, cursed thing. Her hand froze. White gloves again, that bit of delicate embroidery, frayed fingertips. Her fingers must be cold. But then she kept them so busy, they must be warm from her exertions. She made a little humming noise in her throat, thoughtful and dreamy, and then she tilted her head back, lifting her face to the sun. Eyes closed and red-gold lashes fanned out above her cheekbones. Skin there a bit bruised, as if she had not slept well. Red curls poking out near her temple, her ear, her jaw.
He clasped his hands tightly behind his back because curls shaped to bounce about a man’s fingers could tempt them to ruin so, so very easily.
Her eyes opened.
She squeaked, snapped up straight, and twisted to face him. “Your Grace!” She pressed a hand to her chest. “My, but you frightened me.”
“Apologies.”
“You don’t mean that. You’re grinning.”
“I’m not.” Said through a grin. “What are you writing?”
“Notes.”
“About?”
After a pause which seemed to serve the same purpose as an eye roll, she said, “Your sister. The gentlemen she’s conversing with.”
“What do they say?”
“They are my notes, Your Grace, and I do not wish to share them yet.”
“I’m her brother. And a duke.”
She gave a tiny growl, and he grinned again. Couldn’t help it.
“You are not Felicity, Your Grace. And I will only share my notes with her. Unless…” Slowly, she twisted to face him. “If this is our weekly meeting, I will prepare a concise summary of my observations so far, and—”
“No. It is not our weekly meeting. That is entirely separate. We will meet in my study. Alone. Five days from now.”
She snapped back around. “We will meet five days from now with a chaperone. I may be a spinster, but I’m not immune from scandal. I will give you my summary then. There is not much to tell as of yet. And you are distracting me from my observations.”
He paced the length of the bench and back. Less like pacing, more like a silly dance with a single step in either direction. “Then tell me what sort of information you’re putting there.”
She sighed, a long, drawn-out affair, and he settled his feet into the earth just at her shoulder and caged the restless bit of him that needed to wear a trench in the ground behind her. “Notes about his family I discovered while speaking with his mother. Notes about his disposition and how his mother and father spoke of him. Do they beam with pride, or do they seem irritated? Does he act the gentleman when they are not looking?”
“He’d better,” Samuel growled.
“Do you care?”
He rounded the bench and sat in one violent motion. “What in the devil’s name do you mean? Of course I care!”
“You let her fall in love with a man who rejected her. I assume you approved him, and—”
“I did not know about him.” There must have been something dangerous in his voice or countenance because she flinched, leaned away from him. He took a breath, reached for calm, and spoke with greater caution. “I knew him, naturally, but I was unaware of Felicity’s… emotions for him. They had danced a few times, but”—his jaw locked—“I was attempting to ignore my sisters’ suitors.”
“An inattentive protector leads to disaster, Your Grace.”
“I know,” he snapped. “I paid attention enough to know she was not leaving ballrooms with the man, enough to know they were acquaintances, and he seemed interested. Enough to know his background and character were agreeable. I was not inattentive. Merely refusing to meddle. I’ve learned better than to meddle. Didn’t you tell me not to?”
She closed her notebook, pencil inside. “I see. I should commend you, then. And it is true, a man can never truly know a woman’s heart. I apologize for thinking ill of you. It is also true that a woman may be deceived by a man, so it follows that her brother may also be deceived.” Something in her voice spoke of experience with deception.
“Have you been deceived before?”
“Of course. Everyone has. But I never make the same mistake twice.”
“I do.” He barked a hollow laugh. “Sometimes three or four times before I get it right.”
“Very good of you to admit it.”
Easy to admit things to her, easy to open doors of himself he always kept shut, locked.
“Look there.” She pointed toward Felicity where she stood with a different gentleman than before. “She’s quite popular.”
“Of course she is,” he said gruffly. “Those men should count themselves lucky to have a single word from her.”
“Yet she does not feel wanted.”
“What?” He bolted to his feet. “What do you mean? How do you know? How could she think—”
“Sit down.” She laughed.
“How can you laugh?” He retook his seat, but he could not sit still, throwing an arm across the back of the bench, turning this way and that, crossing and recrossing his legs.
A light touch on his shoulder did it, calmed the storm inside him.
Her fingertips like a butterfly—there, then gone again once she began to speak, her voice soothing and playful. “Calm down, you silly old duke.”
He did. Miraculously, he could .
Silly old duke, indeed.
“I can laugh,” she said, “because you continue to show how little you understand women. Most of us feel unwanted at one time or another.” Said not with pain but as if it were a truth as plain as the blue sky above, as well-known as two and two make four or a man’s heart must beat to live.
To him, though, a revelation, a secret as well-kept from him as his sisters’ reading habits.
A cold truth, an uncomfortable truth. One he damn well wanted to vanquish, banish to the realm of myth.
“I should take you to task for calling me silly and old,” he said, picking over each word carefully. “But I admit to finding more to object to over the notion that you or any of my sisters might feel unwanted.”
“Oh, but we do.” She stole his gaze for several breathless moments. Damn. How did she do that to his heart? She must possess a lever that controlled it, making it go faster or slower or stop entirely at the moments she desired. “But I will not hold your ignorance against you. I think… I think those articles you wrote did you a disservice.”
“Clearly.”
“They did not reveal you truthfully. As the Duke of Courtship, you are abysmal. You are”—what a delightfully sly little grin—“Duke Clearly Lacking.”
“A direct hit.” He winced, he shifted, he tried not to show how clever he thought the insult. “Your aim, too, is quite excellent. But are such jabs truly necessary?”
“Let me follow it up with a compliment to soothe the burning embarrassment.” She held his gaze, no hint of hesitation in whatever she was about to say. “As a brother, you are quite spectacular.”
Where’d she come by that knife? How did she possess such a wondrous aim? It thunked right in the middle of his chest. “Yes, well.” He cleared his throat. “I can be abysmal at that, too. But I am trying.” He startled halfway to standing. “Is that man too close to Felicity?”
Lady Emma’s hand fluttered onto his forearm, settled in strong and warm, bringing him back to the bench. “No, he is no closer than he was a moment ago.”
Samuel rubbed the back of his neck. “After last Season, I worry more than I used to.”
“Why?”
“I came to better understand my sisters, and such familiarity bred fears. I… perhaps you can answer something for me.”
“I will try my best.”
“When is a man to kiss a woman?”
Her mouth hung open, and it never quite closed as it curved, flashing even teeth, then the wet, pink tip of her tongue as she spoke. “Not ten minutes after they meet, Your Grace.”
He searched the ground for a hole to throw himself into.
She removed her hand, settled it in her lap, and the place where it had once been burned with the absence. “The timing does not matter so much as the nature of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“That the kiss, too, must reveal a couple’s compatibility. Does the gentleman give the lady what she needs? Does she open to him and give back?”
“How do you know?”
“I-wh-what do you mean?”
“You must have kissed the right man, the one who gave you what you needed, in order to know that is the answer to my question.” It was what everyone had told him, that he couldn’t know a thing—courtship in particular—until he’d done it.
“My kissing history,” she hissed, “is not for you to know.”
“The kisses could not have given you what you need. Or you’d be married.” Ignoring Emma had been his target to begin with, but now it became the little triangle of skirt that flung toward him across the bench. He leaned forward, pressing his palms into the bench on either side of his body, capturing and pinning that length of her skirt. “Is that it, Lady Emma?” His voice low and meant to rush red across her cheeks, though he did not look at her to see if he succeeded. “No man’s kiss has ever given you what you needed?”
The velvet of her pelisse was thick yet cold, keeping, hopefully, the late winter chill away. It felt like an unused couch beneath his palm, ready to be warmed by two tumbling, entangled bodies.
“Once,” she whispered. “Only once.”
He curled her velvet in his fist, kept it for a breath, then stood. “I’ll see you in five days. Early morning. My Aunt Millicent shall chaperone. I hope you have much to relate.” He walked away, the feel of her velvet still heavy in his hand.
It shouldn’t matter. It didn’t matter. He was interested in her expertise, in what she could do for Felicity. Not in where her lips had been, not in whether that once she’d uttered so softly was also… him .