Page 215 of Courting the Wrong Duke

Her happiness faltered, and his mouth twitched before she could even protest.

“Because,” he continued, “it is not mine to give. I told him I would ask you what you wanted.”

Rosalind stared at him for a moment before the meaning fully settled.

Then she threw her arms around him.

He laughed and caught her carefully. “I shall take that as a favorable response.”

“He asked you this morning, and you have made him wait all day?”

“I thought it would be good for him.”

Rosalind pulled back to look at him. “Papa.”

“I am recovering from a kidnapping. I require entertainment.”

She laughed and kissed his cheek.

“So,” her father said when she settled beside him again, “what am I to tell him?”

There was no answer to consider. William had begun as the gentleman she was never supposed to want, then somehow become her accomplice, her favorite source of irritation, and eventually her dearest friend.

“He is the only gentleman who has ever courted me properly,” she said.

He raised his brows. “Is that so?”

“Admittedly, he ruined a considerable portion of the courtship while doing it.”

“That sounds rather less convincing.”

“We have a manual now. I expect the next attempt will go much better.”

Her father laughed, and Rosalind kissed his cheek once more before hurrying from the room.

She had to find Isabella. There were some things a woman simply could not be expected to keep from her dearest friend, and the knowledge that William intended to propose was unquestionably one of them.

Rosalind had reached the upper gallery when movement beyond the windows caught her attention.

She stopped beside the balustrade and looked down at the broad stretch of lawn behind the house.

Isabella Hartwell appeared to be attempting to murder Gabriel Frost with a stick.

Rosalind leaned farther over the railing and discovered that the situation was actually more alarming than she had first assumed. Isabella had two sticks, one in each hand, while Gabriel had armed himself with a single branch and was defending himself with considerably more skill than she would have expected from a man who generally regarded unnecessary exertion as a personal insult.

Isabella struck with one hand, forcing him aside, then immediately followed with the other. Gabriel caught the second blow against his branch, and the crack of wood carried all the way to the gallery.

Rosalind covered her mouth to keep from laughing.

“You are cheating,” Gabriel called.

“I am fencing.”

“With two tree branches.”

“You have one.”

“Yes, but mine is clearly inferior.”