That’s what they were doing now. Walking through the park, arm in arm, soaking in the day’s warm sun, not to mention the shocked stares of those who saw them together.
It was well planned, Celestine had to admit. On a day like this one, the park was always going to be busy with members of the peerage. The goal was to be seen by them, witnessed so that none would question the validity of this arrangement. And while Celestine knew that it was the right thing to do, she felt wrong about it all… her conscience rebelling against her as if in warning.
“I do wish everyone would stop staring,” she said shyly as they passed by a lord and lady whom she did not know but who the Duke smiled and nodded at.
“Let them stare,” he said as he waved down the path at another couple. “That is the point, is it not?”
She sighed. “It might be nice if you were not enjoying yourself so much.”
“Am I?”
“Clearly, you are,” she accused him. “You seem disturbingly comfortable pretending to be infatuated. Strange, for someone who was so eager to tell me that they rejected the very notion that love existed.”
He chuckled and his smile grew. Although she sensed that was so that anyone watching would assume their conversation to be a more pleasant thing.
“I have always been gifted at pretending,” he said to her. “So exaggerated and false is this thing people call love that it is no hard thing to fake it.”
She looked at him curiously. “You really don’t believe that love exists?”
“Do you?”
She shied away, very nearly forgetting herself. “Of course not.”
“Survival,” he said, almost to himself.
“What was that?”
“Survival,” he repeated. “That is why we do it. You like to pretend that you are mad. I like to pretend that I am one to be feared and avoided. It is no different to pretending that we are in love. Done so that others will not question how we behave, just as they will not try and interfere.”
“Is it an act?” she said to him. “What they say of you…”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Ah, now who is trying to find out personal information about the other?”
She glowered at him and looked away, and then she steamed when she heard him chuckling at her.
Celestine was certain that the way the Duke acted toward her in public was just that, an act. She was certain that this was not the real him. But that just raised the obvious question: who was the Duke really?
From what she had seen, he was not the monster that people claimed. He was not wicked or evil or malicious. After all, wasn’t he doing this to help his niece? Surely, a man like that could not be as awful as people said?
As they walked, Celestine found herself looking at him more and more. He wore a broad smile. Laughter on his lips. His grey eyes sparkled in the sun. It was all an act, and yet…there is just something so real about it.
“Just promise me that it is an act,” she found herself saying.
“What was that?”
“I want you to promise that you are not going to try and…” She furrowed her brow at him. “One month, you said. You can play at being in love all you wish. When we are in public, I will not tryand stop you. But promise me that you will not lose yourself in the lie.”
He frowned down at her, but there was a smirk to it. “Do not fear, Miss Celestine, I am not going to fall in love with you. However, if you fall in love with me…” He shrugged. “My fault, really, for being so charming.”
She scoffed and scowled and looked away, and once more, he laughed to see her so undone.
The walk through the park was far easier than Celestine wanted to admit. Even though it was all an act, her conversation with the Duke was surprisingly effortless and comfortable. He was charming, he was even funny, and he did not take himself nearly as seriously as she expected him to.
Time and time again, Celestine reminded herself not to be fooled. This was not the real him. This was not the Duke of Blackthorne as the world knew him to be. But again, that made her wonder, who was he really? And would she ever know…
Once they finished their walk, they made their way into the city so they might spend an hour or two at a prominent tea shop that was known to be popular among the peerage.
The Duke insisted on sitting by the window. Just as he insisted on pulling his chair right beside her. There was plenty of room to sit across the table, but he refused to listen.
