Page 104 of How Not to Marry a Duke

“Yes, but a visit to the country is much more than a routine house call. You should have sent word.”

“Hmm. I did send word. It must not have arrived.”

His suspicions rose. He’d bet all the gold in his coffers that she’d sent a letter just as she’d left London and it would arrive a day or more later. He led her into the drawing room and set her reticule on an end table just as his housekeeper entered and stopped short at the sight of the lady.

“Welcome, my lady. Would you like refreshment?”

“A spot of tea if you will,” Lady Heywood said. “My throat is dry from the dusty travel.”

“Yes, my lady. Cook prepared fresh scones as well.” His housekeeper bustled from the room with her task.

“Oh dear. I hope my arrival will not burden your smaller staff in attendance here.” His godmother settled on a gold and blue striped settee.

Warwick sat in an armchair across from her. “My staff may be few here, but they are highly efficient.”

“From your lack of a waistcoat and coat,” Lady Heywood began, “I take it you have been working.”

“My lack of formal attire isn’t why you are here, is it? Please tell me why you have left the remaining routs and soirees of the Season to travel all the way to the country.”

“I missed you.”

“I’ve been gone less than a week.”

She sat stiffly on the settee. “Your manners have suffered, Your Grace.”

“I won’t disagree. It’s the country air. Perhaps it’s best if you say what is on your mind.”

“Fine. I will be direct. Why did you allow Lady Adeline to leave London?”

He didn’t wish to talk of Adeline or to address the reasons for her departure for the country without him. His tone sharpened with rancor. “I am not the lady’s jailor.”

Her scowl put him on edge. Apparently, she would have none of his attitude. “When will you propose to her?”

“My personal life is not—”

“Posh! Do not treat me with disrespect, Daniel. It will not work. I’m the one who cared for your bloody nose after a squabble with the aristocratic boys in the neighborhood. I am the one who visited you at Eton and welcomed you to my home for every holiday, and the only person who stood up to your parents on your behalf.”

It was all true, dammit. Every word.

“Adeline will make you the perfect wife. I wasn’t certain when you first brought her to London, but it didn’t take long for me to realize the truth.”

“That we are well suited?”

“No, you fool. That she loves you.”

His heart stalled in his chest. Is it true? Does Adeline love me? She’d asked him about love, and he’d disabused her of the notion. Love was for poetic fools without an ounce of good sense. Not men like him. Men who prized academic learning over lust and poetry. Only his godmother had undertaken the effort to understand him, to accept him for all his eccentricities.

Her shrewd gaze never left his face. “I saw the way you looked at each other. Did something happen between you two?”

Yes, we made love. I almost came deep inside her, and it took every ounce of my restraint to pull out of her warm, welcoming body. He’d wanted to mark her as his own, to possess her every way a male could possess a female.

His jaw tightened. “We didn’t have a falling out, if that is what you are asking.”

“Listen to me, Daniel. If your intentions toward the lady are not proper, then you must not ruin Lady Adeline’s chances.”

“What do you mean?”

“Either propose marriage to the lady or release her to find happiness with another man.”