Page 18 of The Duke’s Matchmaker

“I could take a sip of my drink,” she suggested.

“No, that won’t work, because what if you forget and take a drink just because you’re thirsty? It has to be something you wouldn’t do on your own, but something that wouldn’t stand out as odd to anyone else.”

The two of them thought for a moment.

“I could clasp my hands together,” Dorothy said eventually, holding them up to show him. “Like this. That’s not something I normally do, but it doesn’t appear odd.”

“Yes.” A smile broke across his face. “Perfect. So that will mean I should go on talking to her, whoever she is.”

“But I do think you should wait until after dinner is over before you commit yourself to anyone,” Dorothy said. “You should take the time to find out everything I know about whoever it is, just to be sure she has something you want.”

“Oh, I’m not going to make any commitments tonight,” Nathaniel laughed. “I’m just hoping to narrow down my prospects a bit.”

Dorothy nodded. “Very well, then,” she said. “Shall we go in to dinner?”

They split apart from one another. Dorothy made her way back over to her sisters, who had their heads bent together and were watching her and giggling. She kept her chin in the air as she approached them, and they fell silent, though they continued to look from Dorothy to one another as though communicating something they thought she might somehow fail to understand.

She strode past them and into the dining room.

There were place cards in front of the seats. Honora found hers first and waved to her sisters, but when they examined the places, they saw that she wasn’t seated next to either of them. “I suppose Lord Penhurst wanted to give us the opportunity to speak to new people,” Dorothy murmured, moving up the table. With luck, she would be seated near Nathaniel so that she could show him the signals they had come up with.

But luck was not with her. “Dorothy, you’re here,” Abigail called out, pointing to a seat at the very end of the table.

Dorothy’s heart dropped. She could already see that Nathaniel was taking a seat near the head. Once she sat down, they wouldn’t even be able to see one another. The hand signals they had worked out together would be useless.

Well, I should have known this would happen. Of course she had been exiled to the end of the table. The head was for gentlemen of standing and ladies who were likely to marry. Nobody saw Dorothy that way. It was as she’d told her friends. She was very nearly on the shelf.

Which is what I wanted. I don’t wish to marry, so it shouldn’t bother me. It doesn’t bother me.

But that wasn’t entirely true. It was with a sense of sadness that she took the seat that had been assigned to her. This was what people saw when they looked at her—someone who didn’t need to be considered. Someone who could be set aside so the focus could be placed on more important people.

“Lord Penhurst, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll take this seat.”

The voice was deep and familiar. Dorothy looked up in surprise.

Nathaniel was standing opposite her, his hand on the back of the chair that faced hers. She blinked several times, hardly able to believe what she was seeing.

Lord Penhurst was standing at the head of the table, a frown etched across his face. “Well…of course, if that’s what you want, Your Grace…but I did have this seat here set aside for you, I don’t know whether you saw?”

“I did see,” Nathaniel said evenly. “I prefer this seat, if it’s all the same to you.” He picked up the place card that sat in front of the plate and looked at it. “Lord Elmdale? Would you mind exchanging for my seat?”

Lord Elmdale was an elderly gentleman with a narrow face like that of a rat. “Oh…of course, Your Grace,” he stammered. Dorothy had the feeling nobody would have denied Nathaniel anything he asked for—he was simply too well-respected and too high-ranking. Everyone up and down the table was staring at him as he settled into the seat he had claimed for himself, but no one spoke up to dissuade him.

A thought occurred to Dorothy. He really shouldn’t sit here. He would be seated next to ladies like herself, ladies who had been considered unmarriageable. It wouldn’t do at all to have him here, where he wouldn’t be able to find someone worthy of him.

How was she to tell him?

She reached up and scratched at the side of her neck, the code they had come up with to signal that he was choosing incorrectly.

His gaze lingered on her for a long moment, even after she’d returned her hand to her lap.

What is he staring at? Heat rose to her cheeks, and she felt a flash of irritation. Doesn’t he remember the signal? Why is he looking at me like that?

He picked up his glass of water and took a long drink, then offered Dorothy a smile before turning to talk to one of the ladies seated beside him, who looked as though she couldn’t believe her good fortune.

Dorothy looked up to the head of the table.

The faces there weren’t nearly as pleased. Lord Elmdale had taken the seat that ought to have belonged to Nathaniel, and one of the ladies sitting next to him looked like she might get up and run for the hills. Her nose was wrinkled and her face was a storm cloud of anger.