Page 26 of The Duke of Deceit

“Yes.”

“And the wheels on the carriage go round and round,” her aunt mumbled. With a pointed brow, she reached for her cup of chocolate and mused, “Perhaps it had something to do with a certain duke.”

Jess’s shoulders slumped. If she couldn’t even fool Auntie, there was no point attempting any more dissembling. “We had an interesting…”

“Encounter?”

“Conversation.” She narrowed a reproving look on Matilda. “I’d approached him about Amanda.”

“You meanheapproachedyou. I saw him lead you away from Mr. Caulderfield.”

Jess wisely ignored that and reached for a plain piece of toast from the rack. Her stomach couldn’t handle anything more substantial this morning. “I wanted to give him the opportunity to explain himself and do the honorable thing by agreeing to marry her.”

“And did he?”

She grimaced and snapped the toast in two. “No.”

The blackguard did neither. Instead, he had the audacity to look surprised when she’d mentioned the baby, as if he’d had no idea. As if! Of course, he knew about her sister’s unfortunate situation. Amanda had explained it all in her letter to him, only for him to callously reject her.

“Well, you were certainly out on the terrace a long time if all he did was say no.” Matilda slid a knowing glance across the table at Jess as she deftly decapitated a kipper. “Was that really all that happened?”

“Yes.” She covered that lie by popping a piece of cold toast into her mouth.

“That’s not what Mrs. Peterson reported after you returned to the ballroom.”

Her heart stuttered. Good Lord, the Petersons had seen her with Lucien in the shadows! Her sleep-deprived, kiss-troubled mind had momentarily forgotten that.

She forced down a hard swallow of toast. “Mrs. Peterson was mistaken.” She flicked imaginary crumbs off her fingers to give herself a moment to think of what to say. “It was a simple misunderstanding, that’s all. His Grace was a perfect gentleman.”

“She said you slapped him.” Auntie popped a strawberry into her mouth and mumbled around it, “Hard.”

“Yes. Well. As I said, there was a misunderstanding.”

“She said the duke was touching your cheek.”

“Not my cheek. My hair.” She couldn’t look at her Auntie as the lies tumbled out, so she fixed her gaze on the small glass of orange juice that their butler Simms set in front of her. Her stomach roiled. Heavens! She couldn’t look at the orange juice either. So she stared at the small honey pot. “He saw something in my curls.”

“Something?”

“A leaf. The wind was blowing—there were leaves on the terrace, you see, and they were stirred up by the wind—and one must have lodged itself in my coiffure—and he reached up to pluck it off. All perfectly proper.”

“Then why did you slap him?”

“Because I didn’tknowhe was being proper.” If she kept digging, at this rate she’d find herself in China by noon. “He’s a notorious rake. That sort of men do all kinds of improper things with ladies when they think they’re alone in the darkness.”

“Youwerealone in the darkness.”

“We werenotalone. The Petersons were there.” She punctuated that point by reaching for the chocolate pot. Perhaps the thick liquid inside would settle her stomach. “That’s why I slapped him,” she prattled on quickly. “I thought he was trying to touch my hair, but that wasn’t at all the case. He was simply going after a leaf. So you see, the fault was all mine. More chocolate?”

“Please.” Auntie slowly held out her cup, but her gaze never left Jess’s face. “Chocolate is always good when listening to fairytales.”

Jess rolled her eyes and set down the pot with a loud thud. “Auntie, do you really think I’d allow myself to be charmed by that bounder?”

“Amanda did.” She picked up the pot herself to finish the pour. “If rumors can be believed, so have half the women at Almack’s, Covent Garden, Vauxhall, and the Royal Academy of Arts’ summer exhibition.”

“That is not true, and you know it.”

“What I know is that both my nieces have encountered that man in the shadows in the past year, and neither of them were themselves after.” She pointed her cup at Jess. “You need to stop this before it goes out of control.”