He is not unfortunate looking, I suppose.Hugo frowned.But surely, he is too old for her.
And if he was this boring among gentlemen, what sort of enrichment could the man possibly provide to someone as bright and lively as Evelyn? Would she just have to smother that part of herself again, making herself small to fit the marriage and the man?
Just then, the baron caught Hugo’s eye.
Visibly steeling himself, the older gentleman excused himself from the companions who had not seemed to notice his presence, and walked toward Hugo.
“I hear that I am to offer you a debt of gratitude,” the baron said with a tight smile. “Youarethe Duke of Ravenvale, are you not?”
“I am,” Hugo replied.
The baron dipped his head. “Then, I… uh… thank you for what you did for my betrothed in the woods. If I had known of her plight, of course I would have come to her rescue myself, but… Yes, thank you.”
“You did not notice that she was not with the rest of the hunting party?” Hugo asked, unable to temper the note of anger in his voice.
The baron flinched, his eyes narrowing. Evidently, he did not like the accusation that he was not particularly observant, least of all with the woman he was supposed to be marrying.
“I cannot say that I did, but there were others who were absent,” the baron replied coolly. “Was I supposed to halt and return to find them, too? Or was it easier to assume that they were all together, behind the lead group?”
“Easier, certainly,” Hugo retorted, holding his glass of port a little tighter.
Did he have to remindthisman too of the difference in their station? It was not something he cared to do, ordinarily, but if necessity called for it, then hewouldsee to it that the baron felt as small as Evelyn might, if the marriage went ahead.
“That is ridiculous,” the baron muttered, flustered beneath Hugo’s harsh glare. “How was I to know that some mischief had befallen her? I am not clairvoyant.”
“Nor are you observant,” Hugo said with calm fury. “You might not have had a betrothed at all if something worse had happened to her. It is your responsibility to watch over her, tobeaware of where she is and where she is not.”
He thought of Dominic and Frances, and of Laurence and Joan. His friends were always stealing glances at their wives, almost a subconscious habit. If he had asked one of them where their wives were, they would have known without question. Indeed, they would not have been riding with the lead group at all if their wives had somehow fallen behind.
“With respect, Your Grace, what business is it of yours how I conduct myself?” the baron asked, visibly struggling to restrain himself.
“BecauseIwas the one who had to take care of her,” Hugo replied. “BecauseIwas the one who had to make up for your lack of attention.”
Because I was the only one worried when she was not among the hunting party.The thought slithered into his head, knocking some of the bluster out of him. Whywashe making it his business? Whywashe quarreling with the baron at all? It was not as if he and Evelyn had anything close to an understanding or even an affection for one another.
His hand tingled, remembering where she had grabbed it in the drawing room, and the warmth in her eyes as she had thanked him for his help. His heart beat strangely out of rhythm,recalling how… normal it had felt to hold her in his arms, as if he had done it a hundred times before.
The baron shrank back from the hard tone of Hugo’s reprimand, dropping his gaze, looking suitably ashamed of himself.
It was at that moment that Hugo realized that they had drawn the attention of the rest of the gentlemen in the Sun Room. Dominic seemed surprised, Laurence seemed baffled, while the other gentlemen were a mixture of discomfort and intrigue. They were used to the cavalier, playful iteration of Hugo, not this harsh, sharp-tongued duke.
“Let it not happen again,” Hugo said, needing to put an end to this before he began to arouse suspicions in his friends, more than anyone else.
The baron bowed his head lower. “It shall not, Your Grace. And… thank you again for taking care of her. It will not fall to you again; I swear it.”
“I hope it does not,” Hugo remarked, as he downed what was left of his port and, with a sniff of derision, marched right out onto the terrace… and kept going, hoping to reach a distance capable of clearing his head of Evelyn Bartlett and that awful, insidious repetition:Betrothed… Betrothed… Betrothed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Ihave never been to Oxford before,” Evelyn said, her nose pressed almost flat to the carriage window. “I have heard such wondrous things about it, though. The spires and domes. The knowledge that radiates from its very center. The history, the majesty, the ideas, the theories that have shaped and continue to shape our world.”
From across the squabs, Octavia giggled. “We are going to Oxford to seek out dresses and bonnets, dear Evelyn. We shall not be visiting the university.”
“No, I know that, but… a lady can dream of the libraries, can she not?” Evelyn replied with a shy grin, for books had always been her salvation, her greatest companions, and, unlike people, she had never met a library she did not like.
“You cannot read a husband into existence,” Selina cut in, a darkness around her eyes, a pallor to her usually rosy complexion.
At breakfast, Evelyn had asked her best friend if something was the matter, but Selina had insisted that it was merely the guest chamber she had been placed in.
