“You are unusually quiet on the subject,” Imogen prompted, setting her cup down with a small clatter.
“I am waiting for you to tell me the rest of it,” Bethany replied, her smile devoid of its usual warmth.
She stood, smoothing her skirts, and let herself out through the garden door. The quiet click of the latch echoed in the empty room, and it seemed like a devastatingly articulate response.
Imogen remained in the chair long after her tea had gone cold. Upstairs, the house settled into its morning routine, the floorboards creaking under the maids’ footsteps. She pulled the volume of Crébillon from her reticule, flipping to the page where the duke’s shadow had fallen.
The words blurred together. Beneath the French prose lay the indelible memory of a gloved knuckle dragging slowly across her skin, a laugh that had escaped its cage, and pale, silver eyes that had seen entirely too much.
Why her, and why now? After four seasons of perfect irrelevance, the most pursued man in London had decided she was worth unearthing from the shrubbery. She closed the book, running her thumb over the leather binding. She did not possess an answer, and the persistent tension against her ribs suggested she was terrified of finding one.
Chapter Three
“The ring, Your Grace.”
Collins delivered the statement as if citing a point of law Ash had willfully ignored. They stood in the front hall at Grosvenor Square, Ash already in his coat, a paper-wrapped posy of hothouse violets loose in his left hand. Collins stared pointedly at Ash’s right. The valet had been dressing dukes since before this particular duke had mastered a cravat, and he viewed the occupation as a sacred trust.
“What is wrong with the ring, Collins?” Ash asked, glancing down.
“It faces inward.” Collins did not sigh, but the air around him grew distinctly heavy. “A duke calling upon a baronet’s daughter must be immediately identifiable as such. The signet ought to face the world.”
Ash twisted his hand. His mother’s ring, a thin gold band bearing a worn cameo that predated the ducal crest, was indeed turned inward against his palm. He preferred it there, a quiet thing kept hidden from the ton.
Before he could argue, Collins reached over and rotated the band a sharp quarter turn. “There. Now you appear as a man who intends to be taken seriously.”
“I always look like a duke,” Ash murmured, adjusting his cuff. “The taking-seriously is entirely up to the lady.”
***
He took the carriage to Mayfair, breathing in the scent of horse and the sharp green promise of the plane trees along the squares. Eleven o’clock was an unfashionably early hour, chosen deliberately to circumvent the crowded drawing rooms and watchful chaperones of the afternoon.
He had spent an hour at his desk plotting the call like a hand of piquet. He knew the precise compliments to offer, the exact angle of his smiles, the entire strategy required for women who desired his guidance. Yet the woman behind the potted palm had refused to play her part. She had countered his flirtation with a correction and rejected his waltz without a blink. Her hands had trembled, but her face had remained maddeningly composed, a contradiction that had kept him awake far past his usual hour.
The Goodall townhouse sat in the narrower end of a respectable street, holding fast to dignity with polished brass and fiercely swept steps. A wide-eyed maid admitted him, her curtsy wobbling dangerously at the knees, and ushered him into the drawing room.
Imogen Goodall was standing by the window, and the morning sun streamed through the glass directly behind her, turning the thin muslin of her gown briefly, devastatingly translucent. Ash stopped in the doorway. For a single, unguarded second, he saw the exact curve of her waist sweeping into her hip. He traced the shadow of her stays, the faint ridge of boning against her ribs, and the soft, uncorseted dip of her figure below it. She was entirely real, her body solid and warm beneath the out-of-fashion fabric, and a sudden, sharp pull of heat seized the base of his spine.
She turned, breaking the light, and the vision vanished before he was forced to account for it. She faced him with the composure of a woman who knew exactly what she wore and refused to apologize for the fraying hem.
“Your Grace,” she said, her voice perfectly level. “That is an early call.”
“I am reliably informed that eleven o’clock is an acceptable hour for a morning call.”
“It is acceptable from a vicar, or a physician.” She did not move from the window. “From a duke, eleven o’clock is eitheran emergency or an ambush. Which have you brought me this morning?”
Before he could answer, Aunt Margery materialized in the doorway behind her. The small, gray-haired woman blinked at Ash, then at the flowers in his hand, her mouth opening and closing as she produced a fragmented string of syllables regarding tea, the weather, and biscuits.
Imogen intervened with the smooth efficiency of a woman accustomed to managing her aunt’s social panics. Within moments, she had redirected the older woman toward the kitchens to supervise the tea tray, leaving the doorway blissfully empty.
Ash stepped forward and offered the violets. Imogen accepted them without comment, holding the purple blooms briefly before giving them to the maid to set them in a small vase on the mantelpiece. Beside the cheerful, ordinary garden daisies already there, the expensive hothouse flowers looked slightly embarrassed.
“Do sit down, Your Grace,” she instructed, taking the chair opposite.
She folded her hands in her lap, her back straight. There was no nervous fluttering, no dropped gaze, none of the predictable capitulations he had come to expect. She merely waited.
“I find it curious,” Imogen began, her tone conversational, “that a man who has successfully avoided noticing me for four seasons has suddenly remembered my existence on a Tuesday morning. Has Tuesday become fashionable?”
Ash leaned back, crossing one leg over the other, refusing to let her see how the direct hit amused him. “I noticed you on Saturday, Miss Goodall. You were hiding behind a palm, reading a book your aunt would surely not approve of.”
