Page 27 of This Marquess of Mine

An unhappy sigh escaped her as she rounded the hedgerow, the moonlight lighting her path. Her head came up, her gaze trained ahead…

And then she spotted him.

Griffin. Sitting alone on a bench against the hedgerow.

She stopped in her tracks, scattering gravel as her breath caught. “How long have you been sitting there?” she blurted.

Had he heard her exchange with Paxton?

Her cheeks flushed. Of course, he had. The bench was only feet from where she and Paxton were standing. How could he have missed it?

“Not long,” he said, shifting on the bench to hook an ankle over the other knee.

His casual posture grated, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Long enough to overhear my private conversation with the duke?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Well. She hadn’t expected him to admit to it so readily. Her arms fell to her sides.

“Go on, then,” she said. “Laugh if you want to. It was a pitiful attempt at seduction, and I will not fault you for mocking it.”

She steeled herself, embarrassment knotting and twisting in her gut.

“I don’t want to laugh, Olivia.” His voice was quiet, almost caring, and she could see the truth of his words on his face as he turned dark, steady to hers.

No, he did not want to laugh at her. It was worse. There was pity in his eyes.

Oh, God. She could not abide his pity.

“Why are you out here?” she asked, the words made harsh by injured pride. “Why are you sitting there on that bench, alone, like some sort of eavesdropping lecher? I—”

“Lord Keswick? Where are you?”

Olivia froze, her words falling away as the woman’s hushed whisper shot into the garden like cannon fire.

Griffin slowly rose from the bench, his gaze on Olivia’s as he slipped into the shadows, a forefinger pressed to his lips in a bid for silence.

There was no need for the reminder, though. She had no desire to be discovered out here alone with an unmarried man. Least of all this one.

Leaning her back into the hedgerow, she ignored the shrubbery pricking her skin and focused instead on shrinking into the darkness.

“My lord?” the lady called out. “Are you there?”

Olivia’s lips pursed in annoyance. Who was this woman searching for Griffin? Why was she looking for him? And how did she know he would be in the gardens? Had she—

Oh.

Olivia’s jaw tensed. So that was why he was waiting on that bench. He and this woman had arranged to meet here. Olivia had interrupted their tryst.

The evening grew better and better by the minute.

Another several interminable moments passed before the unknown lady finally gave up. Olivia listened to her retreating footsteps and waited through several beats of silence before slowly emerging from the hedge.

Griffin did the same, shaking out his coat tails and smoothing his hands through his hair.

“I’m sorry about interrupting your…meeting,” Olivia said, filling the silence as she brushed the shrubbery from the back of her dress. “I had no idea you were out here.”

It was a lie, of course. She wasn’t sorry at all.