Chapter Nine #2
Ditty looked at her notebook. Well, she could see how someone might make that mistake.
On page one was a series of squares, almost like a mural or frieze, showing where people would go and precisely at what times.
On the next was a colour-coded map of the restaurant, where people would be stationed, notes on prices…
‘I just like to be organised, that’s all.’ So why was there such a note of defensiveness in her voice?
Henry snorted. ‘This isn’t organised, this is orchestrated! Have I told you before I don’t believe you can plan romance?’
‘Yes, you have,’ said Ditty, moving just a step away.
Henry Paisley—the Duke of Glanyrafon’s close proximity was playing havoc with her brain, for some reason. That was why, Ditty told herself, she could not think of a clever response. The only reason.
‘Romance is just biology,’ Ditty said, as though she was trying to convince herself as well as the tall doctor before her.
The tall, handsome doctor. The tall, handsome, charming and most irritating doctor who was also a duke.
Ditty, get a grip! ‘There’s a formula to it, just like there’s a formula for everything. Input all the requirements, and—’
‘Do you really believe that?’ Henry’s voice wasn’t harsh. Quite the contrary, it was soft, far more gentle than she had heard before.
Ditty swallowed. It seemed ridiculous to have such an intimate conversation on a Brexley pavement. But the street appeared to be deserted. They were alone.
And he was close. So close, she could count his eyelashes. So close she could kiss him, taste his lips, if she leaned forward…
‘Do you?’ he repeated, his eyes unwavering as they stared into her own. ‘Do you think romance can be…can be made, as long as you have the right formula?’
Ditty swallowed.
* * *
Henry was tempted to break the silence, but he managed to hold it—as he similarly held Ditty’s gaze.
It was painful.
No, not painful. It wasn’t pain somehow lodged in Henry’s chest, clawing at him like a wild animal.
It was something just as intense, just as uncontrolled. It was taking him over, making him say things and do things that…well, yes, he did want to say them. And do them.
But that didn’t mean he should!
‘You’re determined to be a romantic, then?’ Ditty said steadily.
Henry swallowed. ‘No one’s ever accused me of that before.’
‘It’s not an accusation. Not really. It’s just…most people I know would admit falling in love is a chemical reaction,’ she said quietly, dropping her gaze to her notebook, which she snapped shut.
Henry hesitated. ‘I’m not saying there’s no biological element, but—’
‘You’re a doctor,’ Ditty pointed out with a wry smile. ‘I would have thought, of all people…’
Her voice trailed away as she spoke, and she started walking slowly along the pavement. Entirely unsure why he was doing so, Henry started walking alongside her.
A doctor and a duke, he was a puzzle to himself, so there was no reason to suppose that a woman he met a matter of weeks ago would understand him.
Wait—understand him? Did he wish to be understood?
‘I am a doctor, and I suppose there is truth to what you say,’ he admitted, trying not to swing his arms. Every time he did so, he brushed up against Ditty’s pelisse.
Why had he never noticed before just how much he swung his arms?
‘Biology,’ Ditty said smartly.
Henry chuckled. ‘It’s not as easy as that.’
‘Oh, isn’t it?’ she said, arching an eyebrow, though he was relieved to see there was a smile dancing across her lips. ‘The way I see it, when we meet someone we like, our body changes. Our heart rate increases, our eyes change, our breathing—am I not correct?’
Henry’s jaw clenched. To think, he was being given a biology lesson. ‘You are.’
Ditty grinned. ‘There you go! And you would know better than anyone that the particular mixture within us is highly potent. We become giddy, excited, sometimes even euphoric. It changes our appetite, reduces our ability to sleep. We move into a different chemical state. That’s all.’
Henry swallowed. Somehow he had managed to stand closer to the woman who was making his head spin, his mouth dry.
‘It is biology,’ Ditty said lightly, her pupils dilating as she gazed up at him. ‘It’s…it’s built into how we’re made.’
Was it his imagination, or was her breath quickening? Was his? Why were his fingers tingling so?
‘You think so?’ Henry managed to say.
Ditty’s cheeks were pinking, and he could not understand why, nor why she was inexplicably leaning closer to him. ‘I have seen it a thousand times. I’m certain I know it when…when I see it.’
Henry swallowed, her gaze darting to his throat, and when her eyes returned to his, there was something in them…something he did not understand.
He should kiss her. He shouldn’t kiss her. He should kiss every inch of her and damn the scandal.
‘And that’s all there is to it,’ Ditty said lightly, breaking whatever spell she had put him under. ‘The biology of love.’
Oh, hell. It sounded so simple when she put it like that! Yet there was more, he knew. When he had fallen in love with… No, he told himself firmly. He was not going to think about her.
‘It’s not that simple,’ he said aloud.
Ditty shook her head. ‘I’ve never seen it otherwise.’
‘Then perhaps you’ve never seen love, real love,’ he said impulsively. ‘When someone falls in love, it isn’t that simple. It isn’t just biology and chemistry and heart thumping and chest tightening and…’
He couldn’t continue as she caught his eye. He looked furiously away.
He wasn’t describing himself, Henry told himself firmly. This was different. He felt all fluttery around Ditty because they were arguing. Because they were in a disagreement, yes, that was it.
And that was all.
‘It’s more than the physical change,’ he said aloud, trying to distract himself from the way her hair was pinned in waves around the collar of her pelisse.
‘It’s the emotional change, isn’t it? The feeling that…
being with the person is the only place in the world you want to be.
Knowing whatever they need from you, you’ll give it.
Sensing if they fell, you’d catch them, catch them even if it meant falling yourself. ’
Henry’s mouth was dry. He’d never spoken like this to anyone. Not even—
He continued hastily. ‘And those emotions are expressed physically, I’d be no doctor if I couldn’t admit that. But I think the emotions, they come from somewhere else. Somewhere deeper. Somewhere more than just biology.’
She examined him carefully as they reached the end of King’s Street. Without exchanging a word, they turned on their heels and started walking slowly back up the pavement from where they’d come.
‘I was right, then.’
Henry looked quizzically at Ditty, who smiled.
‘You are a romantic.’
He chuckled. ‘I suppose I am, though I don’t know why I’m having this debate with you.’
Well, he had a pretty good idea…
‘I think you just like to argue.’
He laughed. ‘You’ve got me all wrong!’
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ teased Ditty, glancing at him through her lashes. ‘I think you’ve spent too much time here in Brexley with the same people. I think you’re looking for a bit of fresh conversation.’
There could be some truth in that, even Henry had to admit. But it was far more likely, in his mind, that there was something about Ditty herself which drew this out of him. Drew it from somewhere deep.
‘Perhaps,’ he conceded as they passed the floristry.
‘I would have thought—I mean, you are a duke. I suppose I should be calling you “Your Grace” or—’
‘No, don’t,’ he said quickly. ‘I’d prefer it if you called me Henry.’
Ditty did not look at him as she said, ‘My point remains, however, that you are a duke. You should be, I don’t know, gracing the floor at Almack’s or cheating men at cards at court or—’
Henry could not help but laugh. ‘Do I look like that sort of man to you?’
It was the wrong thing to say. She looked at him closely, his chest tightening as her gaze drifted down his body.
‘No,’ she said softly. ‘But then, you don’t look like a duke.’
It was perhaps the nicest thing that anyone had ever said to him.
Henry grinned. ‘Well, I haven’t been a duke for very long, and I wasn’t raised to be one.
My uncle—a great-uncle my mother had never spoken of—died childless, much to our surprise, and my mother turned out to be the granddaughter of a duke, even more to our surprise.
And so last year I became something I cannot live up to. ’
Damn, he had not intended to speak with such bitterness. When he glanced at Ditty, she was looking at him seemingly with curiosity. He would have to hope it was something like that.
‘That explains why you did not introduce yourself to me as the Duke of Glanyrafon.’
Henry snorted. ‘The day I start doing that will be a very sorry day indeed.’
‘But you do not go to Town for the Season—’
‘I like it here,’ he said forcefully. ‘I like the people here, I like arguing with you about love and romance and biology, but I think I’m fighting a losing battle. I mean, you’ve clearly built your business on this.’
‘This?’
‘This formula thing you spoke of,’ Henry pointed out. ‘You know, your ability to always get a “yes” from any poor unsuspecting woman.’
That was it, meander away from the subject of the duchy and how he did not behave like a proper duke. He tried to put as much teasing into his tone as possible, and was rewarded by a broad smile.
This was ridiculous, he tried to tell himself. He’d only come into town because he needed potatoes and lamp oil for the dining room. More things he couldn’t afford. More things he’d have to buy on credit.
Henry’s chest, so recently warmed with joy at his conversation with Ditty, iced over. He really had to do something about the dire situation the Lodge found itself in.