Page 62 of The Duke’s Matchmaker

Her heart dropped. She should have known. She should have expected. Of course it was him.

Nathaniel stood in the doorway. He’d removed his mask, and she could see the irritation etched on his face. Her heart pounded, and her stomach was in turmoil. She feared that his anger was at her. She longed to comfort him, to discover what was agitating him and offer some way of soothing him. She wanted, also, to lash out at him. She had been angry with him before he had come in here, and there was no reason his mood ought to have the power to erase her own.

“Did you follow me?” she managed.

He folded his arms. “Did you run from me?”

“I told you. I told you that I wasn’t feeling well, and that I needed a moment to myself. A moment to sit down, away from people. Is that a crime?”

“You’re not ill,” he said. “I saw the way you were behaving on the dance floor.”

“What was wrong with my behavior?” Her face grew hot. “I was only dancing.”

“There was nothing wrong,” he said. “Nothing wrong at all. You were full of energy. Enjoying yourself thoroughly. So I can’t realistically believe that you’re suddenly ill when it was abundantly clear during that dance that you were fine.”

“You were watching me,” she realized.

It was Nathaniel’s turn to go red in the face. He said nothing.

“Why were you watching me?” she asked, not entirely sure that she wanted to know the answer. Was it possible that any answer to that question could be something she would like?

He hesitated for a long moment, and she had the impression he was trying to decide what to say. “I wasn’t watching you,” he said at last.

“You were!”

“I was watching that scoundrel you were with.” His face darkened. “He was rude and disrespectful, interrupting us in the middle of our conversation the way he did.”

“He didn’t, though,” Dorothy protested. “It was Violet who came up on his behalf and interjected.”

“Yes, well, she did so at his behest. He should have told her to wait until you were on your own. That would have been the decent thing to do.”

“I see,” Dorothy said, crossing her arms, seizing upon her anger for the simple fact that it was the easiest of her emotions to deal with. “So, if you’re talking to me, no one else is permitted to talk to me until you’re finished? Is that it?”

“You know that isn’t what I said.”

“It sounds like it to me. You were staring at me the whole time I was dancing because you were so angry that someone had the audacity to speak to me when you were speaking to me first. That’s what I heard, Nathaniel.”

“Well, it’s a matter of simple courtesy not to interrupt another gentleman’s conversation,” he said.

“Take it up with him, then,” Dorothy snapped. “If you were watching us so closely, then you must be able to recall what he looked like and find him again. It doesn’t explain why you’re following me around like this.”

“I just wanted to finish our conversation where no one else could interrupt.” His voice was a growl now. “I just wanted to be able to speak to the person I wanted to speak to without anyone else getting in the way.”

Dorothy felt exhausted, all at once. It was so difficult to maintain anger with Nathaniel. There were too many good times, too many good memories. It was too easy to look at him and see the man she had picnicked with, the man she had come so close to defeating at chess. The man she had instructed in how to flirt with ladies and completely lost herself with.

The truth is that if we were free to do whatever we liked, I would have loved to spend my time with him this evening.

She could hardly bear to look at him. Even now, when he was angry, there was a softness in his gaze that made her want to approach him with kindness instead of recriminations. Even now, she wanted to be his friend.

But we can’t be friends. We just can’t.

She owed him an explanation, though—or, at least, she was beginning to see that she wouldn’t be able to break away from him without providing one. He wasn’t going to let her go and keep his attention on Lady Amanda, as she’d hoped he would. He was going to keep trying to spend time with her. She had to let him know why that wasn’t all right, why it wasn’t going to work for either one of them.

She let her arms fall to her sides. “You can’t keep doing this, Nathaniel,” she said quietly.

“I can’t keep doing what?”

“You can’t keep following me. Spending all your time with me. Seeking me out like this. It’s not appropriate any longer. You and I shouldn’t have shared a dance today either, for that matter. You’re meant to be courting Lady Amanda.”