Chapter 31 #2
“Has someone been bothering her?” He growled the words, his head whipping around to look at Rose. Both she and Matthew were focused on their own conversation, thankfully, and did not notice. “Who? I’ll—”
“No, no.” Johanna patted his chest, just above his scarlet pocket square, to get his attention before Rose could see his reaction and think something terrible.
He turned his burning blue gaze back to Johanna, where it smoldered with a kind of protective fire that took her aback in its intensity.
“No one has been bothering her. Not here. There were a few men in the past, but not for months. Rose is not one to suffer fools.”
The fire banked almost immediately, and he quite quickly turned back into the affable, charming Duke of Montagu.
But Johanna did not think she would forget how quickly he’d turned knight-protector when he’d thought Rose’s honor was being threatened.
She should not have forgotten; he had also been there the night she was rescued from the brothel and had participated in guarding her along with Matthew.
Both of them could be quite fierce, despite their normally easygoing demeanors, when the situation called for it.
The dance came to a close, and Johanna curtsied as Christian bowed.
Thankfully, her husband was across the room, which meant it was easy enough for her to end up paired with the Duke of Bolton next, rather than Matthew.
It was not that she did not want to dance with her husband, but she also wanted to dance with each of his friends to try to get a measure of who they were as men.
Sometimes, there were hidden depths, such as with Christian.
Would they be the kind of men to blame her mother for providing sleeping potions that were likely used on their fathers?
Johanna was not certain it was something she could deduce, but she had to try. Dancing with them at least gave her a few moments of private conversation with each of them, to get to know them a little better. It also gave her a reprieve from her husband’s far too perceptive stare.
The Duke of Grafton was polite but distant.
There was a sadness that clung to him even when he smiled.
Whether it was the loss of his father or the ending of his relationship with Delilah—who displayed a similar air of heartbreak whenever his name came up—Johanna could not be sure.
He was most open when speaking of his monkey, who he informed her he’d named after Sinclair, the previous Duke of Northumberland.
Which made Johanna think that might be the cause of his melancholy. Or perhaps all of it.
How difficult it must have been, losing their fathers together, then losing Sinclair to the sea…
and then to break things off with Delilah so he could court an appropriate debutante to please his mother.
Of course, he did not say all of this to her, but she could read between the lines of his conversation, and all the gossip her friends had imparted about him supported her thoughts.
He was most comfortable speaking about his monkey, which he’d named after his friend.
“He’d have hated it, of course,” Zachary said, smiling ruefully. “For a while, it was almost like a dare, to see if he’d show up to shout at me about it.”
“I know the feeling,” Johanna replied with fully sympathy. “When my father passed, sometimes I would do something naughty, thinking he might come in at any moment and catch me.”
“Exactly.” Zachary shrugged. “It is a harmless bit of fantasy, I suppose. It does help me keep the memory of him alive, although Monkey Sinclair is far more mischievous than he ever was.”
The dance with him ended, and despite their conversation, Johanna was not certain she knew much more about him than she had before.
He was a stalwart friend and a man trying to do the right thing, no matter how much misery it caused him.
On the other hand, that could very well work against her and her mother if he thought the right thing was that her mother be punished.
And he truly missed his father, she could tell. Which might mean he would want punishment.
The Duke of Bolton was very much like both his sister and Zachary in missing his father.
He did not have quite the same air of sadness about him as Zachary, though.
Johanna felt a kind of anger emanating from him, rather than grief, though she could not think of why. It did make her rather wary, though.
A man holding back such anger… would it spill over onto targets other than where it belonged?
Was she willing to risk it?
Johanna could not help but be relieved when the gentlemen were called away by the Duke of Ormonde’s arrival. He was not there to join the dance lesson but to speak with them, and the dukes all bowed very nicely before they quit the lesson.
She wished she felt more certain about how they would feel about her mother, but at least now that they’d left the room, she had a bit of space to breathe. Even so, she could feel Rose’s eyes on her, watching her.
Eventually, she was going to have to figure out what to do… and who she could trust.