Mr. Cavendish, I Presume (3 page)

“I came to dance,” he announced.

“You loathe dancing,” Grace said.

Mr. Cavendish, I Presume

17

“Not true. I loathe being required to dance. It is a very different endeavor.”

“I can find my sister,” Elizabeth said quickly.

“Don’t be silly. She obviously loathes being required to dance, too. Grace shall be my partner.”

“Me?” Grace looked surprised.

Thomas signaled to the small band of musicians at the front of the room. They immediately lifted their instruments.

“You,” he said. “You don’t imagine I would dance with anyone else here?”

“There is Elizabeth,” she said as he led her to the center of the floor.

“Surely you jest,” he murmured. Lady Elizabeth Willoughby’s skin had not recovered any of the color that had drained from it when her sister turned her back and left the room. The exertions from dancing would probably lead her to swoon.

Besides, Elizabeth would not suit his purposes.

He glanced up at Amelia. To his surprise, she did not dart immediately behind the curtain.

He smiled. Just a little.

And then—it was most satisfying—he saw her gasp.

She ducked behind the curtain after that, but he was not concerned. She’d be watching the dance. Every last step of it.

Chapter 2

Amelia
knew
what he was trying to do. It was clear as crystal to her, and she was quite aware that she was being manipulated, and yet, drat the man, there she was, hiding behind the curtain, watching him dance with Grace.

He was an excellent dancer. Amelia knew as much.

She’d danced with him many times—quadrille, country dance, waltz—they’d done them all during her two seasons in London. Duty dances, every one of them.

And yet sometimes—
sometimes—
they had been lovely. Amelia was not immune to the thoughts of others. It was splendid to place one’s hand on the arm of London’s most eligible bachelor, especially when one was in possession of a binding contract declaring said bachelor hers and hers alone.

Everything about him was somehow bigger and Mr. Cavendish, I Presume

19

better than other men. He was rich! He was titled! He made the silly girls swoon!

And the ones of sturdier constitution—well, they swooned, too.

Amelia was quite certain that Thomas Cavendish would have been the catch of the decade even if he’d been born with a hunched back and two noses. Unmarried dukes were not thick on the ground, and it was well known that the Wyndhams owned enough land and money to rival most European principalities.

But his grace’s back was not hunched, and his nose (of which, happily, he possessed but one), was straight and fine and rather splendidly in proportion with the rest of his face. His hair was dark and thick, his eyes riveting blue, and unless he was hiding a few spaces in the back, he had all of his teeth. Objectively speaking, it would have been quite impossible to describe his appearance as anything but handsome.

But while not unaffected by his charms, she was not blinded by them either. And despite their engagement, Amelia considered herself to be a most objective judge of him. She must have been, because she was quite able to articulate his flaws, and had on occasion entertained herself by jotting them down. Revising, to be sure, every few months.

It seemed only fair. And considering the trouble she would find herself in should anyone stumble upon the list, it really ought to be as
au courant
as possible.

Amelia did prize accuracy in all things. It was, in her estimation, a sadly underrated virtue.

20 Julia

Quinn

But the problem with her fiancé, and, she supposed, most of humanity, was that he was so difficult to quan-tify. How, for example, to explain that indefinable air he had about him, as if there was something quite . . .
more
to him than the rest of society. Dukes weren’t supposed to look quite so capable. They were meant to be thin and wiry, or if not, then rotund, and their voices were unpleasing and their intellect shallow, and, well . . . she had caught sight of Wyndham’s hands once. He usually wore gloves when they met, but one time, she couldn’t remember why, but he’d taken them off, and she’d found herself mesmerized by his hands.

His hands, for heaven’s sake.

It was mad, and it was fanciful, but as she’d stood there, unspeaking and probably slack-jawed to boot, she could not help but think that those hands had done things. Mended a fence. Gripped a shovel.

If he’d been born five hundred years earlier, he would have surely been a fiercesome knight, brandishing a sword into battle (when he wasn’t tenderly carrying his gentle lady off into the sunset).

And yes, she was aware that she had perhaps spent a bit more time pondering the finer points of her fiancé’s personality than he had hers.

But even so, when all was said and done, she didn’t know very much about him. Titled, rich, handsome—

that didn’t say much, really. She didn’t think it was so very unreasonable for her to wish to know something more of him. And what she truly wanted—not that she could have explained precisely why—was for him to know something of
her
.

Mr. Cavendish, I Presume

21

Or for him to
want
to know something of her.

To inquire.

To ask a question.

To listen to the answer, rather than nodding as he watched someone else across the room.

Since Amelia had begun keeping track of such things, her fiancé had asked her precisely eight questions. Seven pertained to her enjoyment of the evening’s entertainment. The other had been about the weather.

She did not expect him to love her—she was not so fanciful as that. But she
thought
that a man of at least average intelligence would wish to know something of the woman he planned to marry.

But no, Thomas Adolphus Horatio Cavendish, the most esteemed Duke of Wyndham, Earl of Kesteven, Stowe, and Stamford, Baron Grenville de Staine, not to mention a host of other honorifics she had (blessedly) not been required to memorize, did not seem to care that his future wife fancied strawberries but could not tolerate peas. He did not know that she never sang in public, nor was he aware that she was, when she put her mind to it, a superior watercolorist.

He did not know that she had always wished to visit Amsterdam.

He did not know that she hated when her mother described her as of adequate intelligence.

He did not know that she was going to miss her sister desperately when Elizabeth married the Earl of Roth-sey, who lived on the other end of the country, four days’ ride away.

22 Julia

Quinn

And he did not know that if he would simply inquire after her one day, nothing but a simple question, really, pondering her opinion on something other than the temperature of the air, her opinion of
him
would rise immeasurably.

But that seemed to assume he cared about her opinion of him, which she was quite certain he did not. In fact, his lack of worry over her good judgment might very well be the only thing of substance she
did
know about him.

Except . . .

She peered carefully out from behind the red velvet curtain currently acting as her shield, perfectly aware that he knew she was there.

She watched his face.

She watched the way he was looking at Grace.

The way he was smiling at Grace.

The way he was—good heavens, was he
laughing
?

She had never heard him laugh, never even seen him do so from across a room.

Her lips parted with shock and perhaps just a touch of dismay. It seemed she did know something of substance about her fiancé.

He was in love with Grace Eversleigh.

Oh, wonderful.

There was no waltzing at the Lincolnshire Dance and Assembly—it was still considered “fast” by the ma-trons who organized the quarterly gathering. Thomas thought this a pity. He had no interest in the seductive nature of the dance—he never had occasion to waltz Mr. Cavendish, I Presume

23

with anyone he intended to seduce. But waltzing did afford the opportunity to converse with one’s partner.

Which would have been a damned sight easier than a word here and a sentence there as he and Grace went through the convoluted motions of the country dance.

“Are you trying to make her jealous?” Grace asked, smiling in a manner that he might have considered flirtatious if he did not know her so well.

“Don’t be absurd.”

Except that by then she was crossing arms with a local squire. Thomas bit back an aggravated grunt and waited until she returned to his side. “Don’t be absurd,”

he said again.

Grace cocked her head to the side. “You’ve never danced with me before.”

This time he waited an appropriate moment before replying, “When have I had occasion to dance with you?”

Grace stepped back and bobbed, as required by the dance, but he did see her nod her head in acknowledgment. He rarely attended the local assembly, and although Grace did accompany his grandmother when she traveled to London, she was only rarely included in evening outings. Even then, she sat at the side, with the chaperones and companions.

They moved to the head of the line, he took her hand for their
olevette
, and they walked down the center aisle, the gentlemen to their right, the ladies to their left.

“You’re angry,” Grace said.

24 Julia

Quinn

“Not at all.”

“Pricked pride.”

“Just for a moment,” he admitted.

“And now?”

He did not respond. He did not have to. They had reached the end of the line and had to take their places at opposite sides of the aisle. But when they came together for a brief clap, Grace said, “You did not answer my question.”

They stepped back, then together, and he leaned down and murmured, “I like to be in charge.”

She looked as if she might like to laugh at that.

He gave her a lazy grin, and when he had the opportunity to speak again, asked, “Are you so very surprised?”

He bowed, she twirled, and then she said, her eyes flashing mischievously, “You never surprise me.”

Thomas laughed at that, and when they met once again for a bow and twirl, he leaned in and replied, “I never try to.”

Which only made Grace roll her eyes.

She was a good sport, Grace was. Thomas doubted that his grandmother had been looking for anything more than a warm body that knew how to say “Yes, ma’am” and “Of course, ma’am” when she’d hired her companion, but she had chosen well all the same.

It was a bonus, too, that Grace was a daughter of the district, orphaned several years earlier when her parents had caught a fever. Her father had been a country squire, and both he and his wife were well-liked. As a result, Grace was already familiar with Mr. Cavendish, I Presume

25

all of the local families, and indeed friendly with most. Which had to be an advantage in her current position.

Or at least Thomas assumed so. Most of the time he tried to stay out of his grandmother’s way.

The music trickled to a close, and he allowed himself a glance at the red curtain. Either his fiancée had departed or she’d become a bit more skilled in the art of concealment.

“You should be nicer to her,” Grace said as she accepted his escort from the dance floor.

“She cut me,” he reminded her.

Grace merely shrugged. “You should be nicer to her,”

she said again. She curtsied then, and departed, leaving Thomas on his own, never an attractive prospect at a gathering such as this.

He was an affianced gentleman, and, more to the point, this was a local assembly and his intended bride was well known to all. Which
should
have meant that those who might envision their daughters (or sisters or nieces) as his duchess would leave well enough alone.

But alas, Lady Amelia did not provide complete protection from his neighbors. As well as she was liked (and as best as he could tell, she was, quite), no self-respecting mama could neglect to entertain the notion that something
might
go awry with the engagement, and the duke
might
find himself unattached, and he
might
need to find himself a bride.

Or so he was told. He wasn’t generally privy to such whispers. (For which he assiduously thanked his maker.)

26 Julia

Quinn

And while there were citizens of Lincolnshire who were not in possession of an unattached daughter/

sister/niece, there was always someone looking to curry his favor. It was damnably tiring. He’d have given his arm—well, maybe a toe—for just one day in which no one said something to him because it was what they
thought
he wished to hear.

There were quite a few benefits to being a duke, but honesty from one’s companions was not among them.

Which was why, when Grace abandoned him at the edge of the small dance floor, he immediately strode toward the door.

A
door, to be more precise. It didn’t particularly matter which. He just wanted out.

Twenty seconds later he was breathing the crisp air of the Lincolnshire night, pondering the rest of the evening. He’d planned to go home; he’d actually been looking forward to a quiet evening before his grandmother ambushed him with her plans for the assembly.

But now he was thinking that a visit to Stamford might be more in order. Celeste would be there, his own private widow—very intelligent and very discreet.

Their arrangement suited both of them perfectly. He brought gifts—lovely tokens that she could use to sup-plement the tidy house and modest income her husband had left for her. And she provided companionship with no expectation of fidelity.

Thomas paused for a moment to get his bearings. A small tree, a birdbath, and what appeared to be an over-pruned rosebush . . . he’d apparently
not
exited through the door that led to the street. Ah, yes, the garden. With Mr. Cavendish, I Presume

27

a slight frown, he glanced over his shoulder. He wasn’t sure if one could actually reach the street without re-entering the assembly hall, but—at this point he could have sworn he heard someone shrill his name, followed by the words
daughter
,
must
, and
introduce
—by God, he was going to try.