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The duke kept pace with unhurried strides. “Miss Astley, may I have the honor of the next dance?”

“Certainly not,” Viola replied. Then she realized that her response hadn’t been precisely polite, although she had just criticized his manners. Hypocrisy is a sin, she reminded herself. Now that she meant to be a vicar’s wife, she was trying to improve her personality.

Not just her shyness in public, but all her other faults as well.

The impulse to call the duke a fatheaded ass, for example. Not a sin, but an offense.

She stopped walking, flipped open her fan, and glanced at the names scrawled there. “Oh, dear. I’m afraid that I have promised every dance, and I cannot make room for you. If only you had asked earlier, when you first arrived.”

“You could accompany me to supper. I believe that the supper dance is playing now, and obviously the gentleman to whom you promised the dance has been unable to find you.”

She had promised the dance to her stepbrother Alaric, since his wife wasn’t attending the ball. It was all planned beforehand so she wouldn’t have to endure a meal with a stranger.

“Unless you’re planning to run away, now that you’ve met with the vicar,” the duke added.

That was too close to the truth to be comfortable.

Perhaps she could contrive to spill something on her gown, allowing her to retire for the night. Aunt Knowe would see through it, of course, but the ball had been such a success to this point that she wouldn’t be too cross.

No, because a print would undoubtedly appear depicting Graceless Viola, the bumbling not-Wilde.

Speaking of which, she had to get rid of Wynter before anyone saw them together. He would draw far too much attention. She didn’t want to be Graceless Viola, but she didn’t want anyone to think that she had caught the eye of a duke either.

“You are waiting for Joan,” she reminded him. “You must know what she looks like since you asked for a dance. Perhaps you can find her. There might be a seat free at her table. Or you could wait for her in the supper room and lunge when she makes an appearance.”

“I would prefer to meet Lady Joan at the arranged time,” the duke said.

“I understand,” Viola said. “You don’t want to look desperate.”

“No,” the duke agreed. “Never that.”

“Well, I will bid you good night, Your Grace.”

“We might go to supper together,” the duke repeated.

“No, thank you.”

“You would be making my uncle happy, not to mention your father and mine,” he said, looking down at her. He was absurdly tall. “That has to count for something.”

“I didn’t know my father,” she said, nipping this ridiculousness in the bud. “He died before I was born. It sounds as if yours was not entirely affable, but all the same, he left you a direct command as regards marriage that should be respected. I am not a real Wilde, and certainly not a duke’s daughter. You needn’t waste your time with me.”

“Sharing the meal will make my uncle happy. I scarcely knew my father and I am very fond of Sir Reginald.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, but he somehow had managed to put on an expression that suggested filial duty. “You might well be barraged by women with stuffed birds on their wigs. I saw at least two or three.” She herself was wearing a reasonably sized snowy white wig, ornamented only with pins topped with pearls.

“I would have you at my side.”

“Yes, but I don’t want you at my side,” she said, resorting to truthfulness. “You will attract far too much attention and I don’t care to be employed as a shield between you and your admirers. I have better things to do.”

He looked faintly offended. “Better than hiding behind the curtains waiting for a milksop?”

“Mr. Marlowe is not a milksop,” she retorted, staying calm because . . . Wynter was an ass and that was that. No point in crossing swords with him. “Mr. Marlowe isn’t vain, like the sort of aristocrat who boasts about his knowledge of the queen’s antechamber. He is a vicar, and as such, he is . . . he is full of the milk of human kindness!” she finished in a rush, the phrase coming to her suddenly.

“Milky indeed,” the duke said, a gleam of humor in his eyes.

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“I imagine not, since the vicar has clearly been showering his milky kindness on the Lindow household, making himself available for pastoral counsel day or night.”