Page 59 of The Duke’s Matchmaker

“But you don’t think I should hold out a little longer in case there’s a better option?” he pressed her.

Dorothy sighed. “You know I can’t make that decision for you, Nathaniel,” she said. “I can advise you on how to treat a lady and I can let you know who I think would make a good choice among the ladies of the ton, but I can’t make your decision for you. Only you can determine who it is you want to marry.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Nathaniel agreed. “I’ll just have to go on seeing her until I’m certain about it. But the park outing…you do think that was a good idea?”

“She seemed to be enjoying herself.”

“But I’m saying, if it had been you, would you have enjoyed something like that?”

Dorothy was tense in Nathaniel’s arms. “I suppose I would,” she said at last. “The fresh air, the sunlight…I do like going for walks in the park. I think that if…a gentleman were to offer me such a thing, I would be very grateful to him, and eager to accept.”

Nathaniel nodded. “What else might you enjoy?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I can’t just keep taking her to the park over and over,” he pointed out reasonably. “I’ll have to come up with some new ideas. But I don’t know what they ought to be. If it was you, where would you like to be taken?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know why you keep asking me what I would like,” she said. “You ought to ask her these questions.”

“Aren’t you the one who agreed to advise me on these things?” he reasoned. “I haven’t stopped needing you, Dorothy. Your counsel is the only reason I’ve found my way to Lady Amanda at all.”

She flinched again. This time he really didn’t know what to make of it. Was it possible she just didn’t care for Lady Amanda? The fact that a lady would make a good mother and wife didn’t mean that she was necessarily a cherished friend. Maybe Dorothy disliked her.

To his surprise, that felt important. Could he marry Lady Amanda if Dorothy didn’t like her? The answer felt like no, and yet why should that stop him?

I don’t want Colin’s mother to be someone who has no friends of her own. That would mean there was something distasteful about her, even if she did make a good mother. Yes, that must be the reason. What else could it be?

The music drew to a close, and Dorothy stepped quickly and nimbly out of Nathaniel’s reach. “I ought to go,” she said.

“Wait. Couldn’t we speak more?” he asked. “I understand it wouldn’t be a good idea for us to dance twice today, but we could go for a walk in the garden, couldn’t we? There are plenty of people out on the path. There would be nothing scandalous about it.

She opened her mouth, and he thought she was going to say yes. His heart pounded with excitement, though it shouldn’t have. It was only a walk. Nothing to get excited about.

Before Dorothy could answer, though, two people came up beside them. A gentleman and a lady, both masked, so Nathaniel had no idea who he was looking at.

But Dorothy seemed to. “Violet?” she said. “Is something the matter?”

“Not at all,” the lady—Violet, she must have been—answered. “This gentleman here would like to dance with you. He was commenting on the beauty in the butterfly mask, and I told him that I knew you and could make the introductions.”

Nathaniel looked at the newcomer. He must have been a very shy fellow if he required someone else to make introductions for him. Surely a spirited lady like Dorothy would recognize that and would turn him down.

But to his shock, she curtseyed and smiled more openly than she had in the entire course of her dance with him. “I would be delighted, my lord,” she said, and before Nathaniel had time to process what was happening, the gentleman had swept her away. A new round of music began, and he watched them start to dance together.

His body was still awash in the excitement of the previous moment, when he had believed they were about to go out into the garden together. It was incongruous, feeling that way while watching this sequence of events. It disturbed him.

He was standing alone on the dance floor, he realized, and he quickly withdrew to the side of the room, his eyes still on Dorothy.

She was the life of the party in that mask, he realized. And he was the one who had now become what she had always called herself—a wallflower.

CHAPTER 30

“Who is that man?” Nathaniel asked. “The one dancing with Dorothy.”

He had located Jonathan and Gabriel and was standing beside them, but he still hadn’t managed to tear his eyes away from Dorothy and her dance partner. Dorothy was so happy with that man, so at ease. He said something and she laughed, and Nathaniel burned inside. She hadn’t responded that way to anything he had said today. He had gone so far as to worry that she might be ill! That felt ridiculous now. She seemed more than fine.

“That was Dorothy?” Jonathan asked. “I saw you with her. I just assumed that it was Lady Amanda. Didn’t you say that you were planning to court her?”

“Well, I don’t know which one she is,” Nathaniel said irritably. “I don’t understand why people enjoy masquerades so much anyway.” He was uncomfortably aware of the fact that he had been touting their benefits to Dorothy just a few moments ago but never mind. “You can’t find the people you’d really like to be with when everyone is wearing a mask. And now that man is dancing with Dorothy and I have no idea who he is.”