Page 46 of The Duke’s Hidden Runaway Bride

“Whatever you are thinking of doing that has put that look on you.”

Ophelia’s fingers closed around the bangles. “You do not know what I am thinking.”

“No. But you look the way you did when His Grace first came. As though you have gone somewhere no one can follow.”

Bronwen crossed the room and knelt before her.

“You did not cross half the kingdom to give Lord Markham the thing you ran to save.”

“My father may be ruined.”

“And marrying that man will mend him, will it?”

“He says it will.”

“Men say a great many things.” Bronwen sniffed magnificently. “They’re wrong about near all of them.”

Ophelia looked down at the bangles. “You think me braver than I am.”

“I think you’re frightened. That’s not the same as being a coward.”

“I know what must be done. I do not know whether I can do it.”

Bronwen closed both hands around hers, bangles and all.

“Then let us get you dressed. You need not decide the whole of it sitting here in your shift.”

Despite everything, a laugh caught painfully in Ophelia’s throat.

Bronwen rose and reached for the dress, a gown of deep green silk, simple in line but finer than anything Ophelia had worn since her flight. Beside it lay the modest pearls she was expected to wear.

“Which jewels, miss?” Bronwen asked.

Ophelia looked at the pearls, then at her mother’s bangles, bright against the dark coverlet.

“Dress me first,” she said. “I will decide afterwards.”

Chapter Seventeen

On the evening of the party, Adrian’s mother found him alone in the drawing room, watching a footman climbing a ladder to light the chandeliers.

The musicians were arriving, and servants moved through the adjoining rooms with trays and candles. Beyond the tall windows, the first carriages waited in the wet street, their lamps blurred gold in the drizzle.

“Miss James will come,” Lady Daventry said.

Adrian turned towards her. “You met her?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“And I believe her. I rather liked her, actually.”

He had not known how tightly he held himself until something in him released. “Thank you.”

“Do not thank me. It is an unattractive habit.” She came farther into the room. “I told her I would receive her, and I shall. I also told her what your choosing her would cost.”

The tightness returned at once.