Her grandfather’s voice echoed so loudly in her ears she was surprised that the duke couldn’t hear it. ‘I am not clumsy,’ she blurted, trying to drown it out.
‘Of course not. We all stumble occasionally. I have danced with you. You do quite all right, some of the time.’
Her mind scrolled back through three Seasons of awkward reels, trodden toes and stilted conversation. ‘You are too generous, Your Grace,’ she said through slightly clenched teeth.
‘Tom,’ he insisted. ‘Or Thomas, if that’s easier.’
‘I prefer Thomas,’ she said, blushing.
‘We have never waltzed,’ he reminded her. ‘You will find that much easier if we should try it. Not so many steps to remember. It is simple to keep the beat when your partner has a proper hold on you.’
At the thought of being held in his arms, she stumbled again.
And once again he held her up. ‘The pathway is most uneven on this street. I will speak to someone with the city and see that it is repaired.’
‘How thoughtful,’ she said numbly, staring down at her traitorous feet.
‘We are almost back to the house,’ he said with a nod. ‘You have survived the first lesson.’
Barely.Her knees felt like water. It was only with an effort that she managed the last few steps without tripping on her hem.
‘It will all get easier, with time,’ he said opening the door and ushering her back inside. ‘In a week, it will seem as if we have been together for ages.’
That was exactly what she was afraid of. If she became too comfortable being courted by the Duke of Bonham, she might begin to believe it was real. How would she survive when it ended?
She would have to get through it somehow. At the end of it, she would have a new and better life. That was the whole reasonfor this farce. It was not a romantic fantasy come to life. She was trying to get free from her grandfather.
She stared down at her feet, ordering them to take step after step, into the house and back to the dining room. ‘I will have a house of my own,’ she said, staring down as if speaking directly to them would keep them in line. ‘A cottage, with roses around the door and a front room full of books.’
‘When we are through, you shall have anything you want.’
She looked up again, at Thomas Carew, Duke of Bonham, the handsomest man in London. ‘Almost anything,’ she corrected. Some things would never be possible no matter how they seemed today.
CHAPTER FOUR
After the duke had gone home, Louisa retired to her favourite room, planning to spend the rest of the morning with a book. But her mind kept straying back to his visit and the story that had been written out for her to learn. She set her novel aside and pulled the papers from her pocket, spreading them out to peruse.
The duke wrote with clear, smooth strokes with no excessive flourishes or blots. She could not remember seeing so much of his writing in one place before. He wrote often to Percy when they were not in town together. Though her brother read the most interesting parts of the letters aloud, he would have thought her quite odd if she’d asked to examine the pages herself.
These lines were written just for her and she meant to enjoy them. Bonham had a fine, masculine hand. She hoped he followed through on the plan to write her some love letters. She could build an entire world of daydreams on a man who had such nice handwriting. If she did not look at the signature, she could imagine anyone she liked.
He would still look like the Duke of Bonham. But there was no reason to let the truth limit her. The pages before her were full of simple delights that could be found in London. She could imagine this life and enjoy it as if it had actually happened.
Of course, the trip to Hatchard’s sounded familiar. It was very like a real conversation she’d had with the duke. At some point, he must have run out of ideas and fallen back on the truth. She hoped that did not mean that these other meetings were taken from memory, too. That would mean he’d swapped out some other woman and popped Louisa into her place.
That was not much different than what she did when fantasising about him, weaving him into the plots of the books she read. But he did not know about that and she had no intention of telling him. It felt less pleasant when the situation was turned about and she was pasted over someone else. But given time, and enough re-readings, she would learn to forget it.
She scanned down the page. There was nothing to be made of meeting at church. That was simply too boring to read more than once. Having ices at Gunter’s was familiar enough. She’d usually eaten alone, or with female friends. But never with a handsome man doting on her every word.
Thomas Smith had not taken her to balls or dinners. But she could not blame him for that. Bonham had attended such things with her. His alter ego could not have been in the same place. Nor should he be wandering around where anyone might have seen him. Their courtship was secretive, which made it rather romantic.
At least, it was romantic if she ignored the most significant fact about it. The man involved did not exist. She could not dance herself around the floor at Almack’s and pretend he was there. Their courtship had been so discreet that even she did not know about it until this morning.
If she had not spent so much of her life alone and enjoying the rich fields of her imagination, she’d have called the duke’s plan nonsense. But in a way, this suited her. A make-believe love affair was the sort she deserved. It implied a social success for her that required no effort. It was not marred by shyness, socialgaffes or her tendency to let her mind wander while men were speaking to her.
Perhaps she paid better attention to Thomas Smith. Or maybe he was just a very patient man.
The door opened at the front of the house and she heard Percy leaving his hat and gloves with the butler before appearing in the doorway of the room to grin at her. ‘Alone again, my dear Louisa?’
