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“Is this an incorrect place to sit?” Jack heard petulance in his tone. Too bad.
“There are several more comfortable spots.”
“But people find me in those places.”
She raised her eyebrows, but she didn’t go away. “I found youhere,” she pointed out.
“We could pretend you hadn’t,” Jack answered.
“You will have to do much better than that if you expect to repelme,” was the surprising reply. “My father practices epic levels of rudeness. And James sniped at me for years when we were…younger.”
Jack gazed curiously at her. He’d supposed that no one was ever rude to this elegant noblewoman. She was the sort they all admired, so polished that opposition just slid right off her.
“Good. You’ve stopped sulking.” She entered the room and sat down opposite him. She wasn’t going away.
“No, I haven’t.” He wouldn’t give up his grievances that easily.
“I see. How much longer do you intend to continue?” She cocked her head as if asking a perfectly ordinary question.
A thread of amusement ran through Jack. “A while.”
“Very well.” She folded her hands, assumed a saintly expression, and settled down to wait.
He had to laugh, even though he saw what she was doing. But he wasn’t ready to give in. “I never wanted to be an earl, you know. Didn’t expect it in the least. Hardly anyone believed my father’s talk of noble relations. All sorts of people claim fine lineages in America, and most of them are liars.”
The duchess nodded. “And yet here you are.”
He’d expected an argument, a lecture on the advantages of his new position. Perhaps a mention of his good luck.
“You might have returned to America. But you did not.”
“Yet,” he replied, his tone clipped.
“You stayed here in the Travelers’ camp, which can’t have been entirely comfortable.”
“I don’t mind rough living. I’m no mincing dandy.”
“No, indeed. That would require a great deal of study and effort.”
Jack blinked. He’d thought of society women as silly and superficial, with prejudices that distilled into venom when they reached old age. This one was none of those things. He decided to abandon the verbal fencing. “Did you wish to speak to me about something in particular?”
“Yes.” She examined him. “I want to know what has passed between you and Harriet Finch.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“We’ll see.”
“What?”
“Whether you require, or deserve, my pardon. I hope you do not. But now I will have the truth. It was obvious during our call that you and Harriet are…well acquainted.”
“It was?” He stared into her luminous blue eyes and decided he’d never met anyone so relentlessly unflappable. Tereford was a brave man to partner her.
“You stared at Harriet like a thirsty man seeing water,” the duchess continued. “She glared back as if she wished looks could incinerate. It was blatant,Cousin Jack. Why do you think I shifted the conversation into inanities?”
He didn’t know what to say.
“Because you think that is the nature of a morning call?” She smiled without humor. “Not mine.”
