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It was clear that the Duke was accustomed to flattery. He beamed at her and bowed his head just slightly. “Would you care to dance with me?”
“Of course,” she said.
“The first dance with the Austrian cousin. What could I have possibly done to deserve such an honour?”
Very soon, Marta found herself in the arms of the handsome and arrogant, blue-eyed Duke Remington, the man her Aunt Margaret would assuredly stop at nothing to bring her to marry. Her hand latched over his; his large one remained at her back. They swept up in the magic of the orchestral piece. She ordered her heart to swoon, to exert some sort of effort. Perhaps it was too soon after all the chaos at home to feel anything similar.
“Tell me, beautiful Marta. What is it like in Austria?”
Marta laughed lightly. “It’s nothing like England. I can tell you that for certain.”
“Your tone suggests that you’re not entirely smitten with our England,” Lord Remington said.
“Am I so easy to read?”
“I just can’t imagine why a beautiful Austrian woman like yourself willingly left her gorgeous mountains and stunning rivers and assuredly bountiful buckets of beer for our rather grey and rule-oriented England,” Lord Remington returned.
“Ah! So you’ve been in Austria,” Marta said. Her heart swelled with warmth.
“Only twice,” he said. “I truly was mesmerised.”
“Why did you ask me what it was like, then?” Marta returned. She furrowed her brow.
“I wanted to hear the poetics of it in your own voice,” the Duke said.
Ah. It was clear that he knew precisely what to say. She tilted her head and decided to live in it, this strange moment in which a very powerful and handsome man demanded to know her true heartfelt emotions.
“I’ll tell you this, Lord Remington,” she said. “I’ll tell you that every morning when I awoke, I said good morning to my beautiful mountain range. I’ll tell you that my friends and other dear ones were some of the most compassionate creatures I’ve met in my life. And I’ll tell you that my father—a tried and true Austrian himself—is one of the best men I’ve ever known. The fact that I’m in England is something of a mistake. But I’m choosing to make the best of it.”
“And the best of it suits you,” Lord Remington returned.
“And what about you? You’ve grown up around here, I suppose? This has been your reality—the sort of poetics you spout when you go anywhere else?” she asked.
“This is my home. I’ve loved it in my bones since I was just a child. I can’t envision going elsewhere for long.”
“And now that you’re Duke…” Marta said.
“As though you know the intricacies of our system,” Lord Remington returned.
“My mother taught me everything. It was a bit of a monstrous thing to deal with as a child. I asked her repeatedly why it was important, as I was an Austrian girl, through and through. This enraged her still more,” Marta said.
“She sounds like a proper Englishwoman,” the Duke said.
“If she heard you say that, she would most certainly swoon,” Marta said.
The song ended soon after that. Marta wasn’t regretful that it had ended; rather, she breathed a sigh of relief as the Duke bid her farewell, bowed, and said he hoped to speak to her again throughout the evening. When Marta spun back around, she glanced around to find her cousins. Only Tatiana was in sight. She broke off from her husband Theo and approached her, her hands wrapped around her shoulders to squeeze a bit too tight.
“I see my mother has worked her magic on you,” she said.
“Perhaps,” Marta said. Anxiety wrapped itself around her neck and then her stomach and made it difficult for her to breathe.
“Are you all right, Marta?” Tatiana asked. Her eyebrows furrowed. “Perhaps you’d like to step outside for a moment. The garden is quite empty, and it’s a bit easier to breathe.”
“Oh. Yes. Goodness, yes.”
As Marta swept behind her, her thoughts churned strangely. She felt she’d been cast back to that horrendous afternoon when she’d learned the truth of her love’s decision; she’d been labelled the other woman. They’d been allowed the life she’d yearned for. Now, she was forced through the chaos of another culture, of another round of handsome and arrogant men, all in a separate language.
When she and Tatiana reached the garden, she heard several cries from far beyond the shrubs. Aghast, she said, “What on earth?”
