Page 26 of To Dare a Duke

She met his gaze and sighed a little. Had that been regret or irritation?

“I don’t think that is a good idea. It will only start tongues wagging and, besides, Minerva will accuse me of chasing you and stealing her thunder.”

“Your cousin,” he recalled, remembering a beautiful blonde. “The one who would snap my hand off.”

“The very same,” she replied with a sweet smile that was not sweet at all.

She lifted the lemonade to her lips, the movement drawing his gaze to her hands. They were long and elegant, but her fingers were ink stained.

“You’ve been busy writing.”

She choked on her drink and he hurried to take the glass from her, wondering whether smacking her on the back would be taken as an act of violence. A moment later she had composed herself again.

“Excuse me,” she said, having gone a remarkable shade of white. “It went down the wrong way.”

“It’s of no matter,” he said, smiling and returning her glass to her. “I was just observing you’ve had a busy day writing letters?”

“Oh! Yes,” she said, as though suddenly understanding the conversation. “Yes, writing letters. Lots of letters. I’m a copious letter writer.”

“You have family to keep in touch with?”

She blinked up at him, her expression a little panicked. “Er… no… friends. I write to friends. I have no family outside of my aunt and cousin.” She smiled then, glancing down at her inky fingers with a rueful expression. “I seem to have an aversion to gloves, or perhaps they have an aversion to me,” she added, looking thoughtful. “They never seem to be where I expect them to be. I was toying with the idea that my gloves migrate during the season. They certainly don’t seem content to return themselves to my drawer and remain there. In fact, they turn up in the most extraordinary places.”

“All by themselves?” he queried, rather amused by her fanciful notion. She was a strange creature.

“Oh, certainly,” she said, her expression grave. “Do you know, a few weeks ago I found one of my best ones outside hanging from the raspberry bushes in the kitchen garden. Only one, mind. The other was in my room. Now how on earth could it have gotten there, do you suppose?”

She looked genuinely curious as to his opinion and he frowned, thinking it over.

“I suppose you are not prone to raspberry picking with your best gloves on?”

A scathing look met this suggestion.

“It’s too early for raspberries, for one thing, and no, of course not. I’ve never even worn them into the garden.” She gave a bewildered looking shrug. “It’s most perplexing.”

“A phantom?” he suggested, finding himself entertained and enjoying the strange topic for no reason he could think of.

What an odd conversation.

Her eyes widened to saucers. “Oh,” she said, sounding a little breathless. “Do you know, I hadn’t even considered that.”

Robert forced his expression to remain serious with difficulty. “Have you lived in the house long?” he enquired. “And is the glove phenomenon of recent duration?”

He had guided her out of the crush of the refreshments room as they spoke, walking back towards the ballroom.

“My aunt rents the cottage. We’ve been there a little over five years and, do you know, I can’t remember when it began?”

“Who lived in the cottage before you? Did anyone die there, perhaps?”

He started in surprise as she clutched at his arm.

“Oh, a romance gone wrong,” she exclaimed, her eyes alight with excitement. “She died of a broken heart when her lover did not come to the church as arranged. All he found of her was a single glove, alone and abandoned at the foot of the altar, just as she had been.”

Robert watched, startled by the sudden flight of fancy as she pressed her hand to her breast, covering her heart and sighing with pleasure.

“Oh, the poor dear.”

“Perhaps he found the glove and hurried to be with her,” he said, a little unsettled by the tragic tale, and finding his attention riveted to the long fingers laying over the curve of her breast. “He may have had a good explanation. Perhaps they lived happily ever after?”