“With whom?”
“With Eastmere. With everyone.” His grip tightened at her waist. “You let them think they have a chance.”
She tried to pull away, but he only drew her closer. “That is not true.”
“It is,” he said. “You are magnetic, and you do not know how to stop.”
“I thought you liked that about me.”
“I do,” he admitted, “except when I don’t.”
She shook her head, tears stinging at the corners of her eyes. “You are impossible.”
He spun her, then caught her, his hand splayed across her back. “And you are infuriating.”
The music slowed, then softened, and they came to a stop at the edge of the floor.
Nancy did not let go.
For a moment, she thought he might kiss her. The thought was so impossible that her heart nearly tripped.
But he did not. He only stared at her, blue eyes as hard and cold as winter, and then he stepped away.
“Thank you for the dance, Duchess,” he said, voice so formal it was almost cruel.
She stared after him, stunned.
For a full minute, she could not move. The room blurred. The conversations, the laughter, the sparkle of the chandelier—none of it made sense. She had spent the whole evening waiting for him to see her.
And when he did, he looked right through her.
He does not want you. Not truly.
He is simply playing at marriage, and you are the only one who ever thought it could be more.
CHAPTER 29
Something is wrong.
The carriage groaned, but it could not ease the silence between them. Nancy kept her hands folded tightly in her lap, while Oscar sat across from her, eyes half-shuttered, his posture so correct it might have been a mockery of ease. She wanted to throw something at him, just to see if he’d flinch.
She counted the passing streetlamps, tried to gauge the rhythm of the horses’ hooves, and tried to distract herself. It was no use. The air in the carriage was dense, as if it had been packed with wool and left to rot.
Oscar still did not speak. He did not even look at her. This was nothing new, but tonight the silence seemed to have teeth.
Nancy tried to reconstruct the evening. Had she done something? Yes, obviously. Had she said something? Absolutely, and probably more than once.
She replayed every conversation, every laugh, every glance she’d cast in Oscar’s direction, searching for the exact moment she’d gone astray. The only clear memory was of him, rigid in his tailcoat, watching her with the cold intensity of a man appraising a weapon.
When the carriage jerked to a halt in front of the manor, Oscar was first to move. He opened the door, descended, then extended his hand to her with a perfect, wordless courtesy. She took it because there was no dignified way to leap from the carriage unaided, and because some part of her wanted to feel his skin, even if only for the fraction of a second it took to steady her.
They walked up the steps together, but not together. Wilks, the butler, bowed as they entered. Oscar did not break stride. Instead, he veered left—away from the staircase, away from her—and paused at the study door. “A word, Duchess,” he said.
She followed, her pulse drumming in her ears. The study was cavernous and dark, lit only by the embers in the fireplace and the slim gold of the moon through the windows. Oscar shut the door behind her, the sound precise, final.
He stayed with his back to her for a long moment, gloved hands folded behind him, shoulders squared.
She waited. Then he turned at last. “Did you enjoy yourself this evening?”
