Page 92 of Winning Her Duke

He glanced around the room. It looked to be the same as the one they’d shared for hours each day talking of horses and other things that interested them. Sharing laughter and occasionally, kisses.

But despite the familiarity he felt in the room, the woman seemed a complete stranger.

“Why are you embroidering rather than painting?” he asked, hoping the answer would give him a clue as to what was amiss.

She put the fabric down and looked at her maid.

“Bess, would you give us a moment alone?”

“Yes. I’ll leave the door open.” The maid curtseyed, which was not something Gia ever requested of her servant.

“Very good. Thank you.”

He barely waited until the maid had gotten out of the room before blurting, “What the devil is going on?”

*

Gia could see Jeremy’s confusion, and wanted to tell him straight out what had transpired while he was away.

She hadn’t been concerned about how this conversation would go before, but now that he was here, she found herself delaying.

She folded her hands in her lap, the way a countess should, and gestured to the seat in front of her.

“Please sit. Would you care for—”

“I don’t want any bloody tea,” he snapped before sitting and taking a breath. “Thank you, though.” He waved a hand toward the windows. “It’s a sunny day. Great light for painting and being outside.”

“Yes, it is, Your Grace.”

“And why are you calling me Your Grace? You call me Jeremy or Hale at the very least.”

“It wouldn’t be proper.”

“Since when do you care about what is proper?” He looked around the room as if wondering if he’d wandered into the wrong house. So much had changed since he’d last been there.

“Since I am to be a countess,” she said sharper than she’d planned. Apparently, it wasn’t so easy to hide her irritation with him.

“What?”

“I’m to be married,” she repeated, wishing the words made her heart race in excitement. The most she could say was that she no longer felt ill when sharing her news.

“Married? To whom?”

It should have bothered her more that he questioned her news as if it were preposterous.

“Lord Duncan.”

Hale had said Lord Duncan was a respectable gentleman. It was one of the reasons she’d considered his offer. But now it seemed Hale despised the man.

“I need to sit down,” he said.

“You are sitting, Your Grace.”

“Aye.” He rubbed his forehead. “I feel as if I’ve woken in a Dickens novel. I was only gone just shy of five weeks, and it’s as if I’ve returned to some paradox.”

“I know it is a surprise. But so much has happened since you left.” She stopped herself from adding, with no word, because it was not her place.

“Please start at the beginning and explain so I can get my bearings.”