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“You did not have to be so harsh on her,” Emily told him, her brown eyes worried.
“She was asking for it,” he replied succinctly, to which Jenny, who had been serving the tea, could not help but burst out into a choked giggle. He raised an eyebrow at this. “Even your maid seems to agree with me.”
Emily rolled her eyes and smiled haplessly at Jenny. “You will both get me into more trouble.” Jenny smiled and left the room.
She was frankly much relieved that Daniel seemed to be in a better mood this afternoon than he was yesterday. She had been worried that she had somehow managed to displease him as Amy had implied, but that would not seem to be the case at all.
Perhaps I am merely overthinking everything, she told herself, watching him as he elegantly poured himself some tea and took a sip out of it.
Even in the highly civilized setting of their salon, His Grace emanated an authoritative aura that seemed to dominate the whole room. Emily could not pinpoint whether it was the way his broad-shoulders nearly dwarfed their chairs or the lazy grace with which he moved.
Like a panther in his territory,she surmised, daring to peek at him over the rim of her teacup.
“My dear, if you keep looking at me like that, you might find that it will advance our lessons beyond what is acceptable,” he drawled, a dark eyebrow cocked arrogantly as he smiled at her.
Emily flushed at having been caught staring at him. “I…It was nothing, Your Grace. I am merely eager for more of your lessons.”
“Be careful what you wish for, Emily,” he told her softly. “Sometimes, one does not realize when things have gone too far.”
She nodded shakily and sipped at her tea, the thinly veiled warning causing a sudden thrill to run down her spine. She did not know how it came about—she was never as adventurous or as bold as other young ladies—but there was something about the Duke that called out to something within her.
Something deep andprimal.
Uncharted territory, she realized with a hitch in her breath.I am treading on uncharted territory.
“What else do you wish to know?” he inquired of her. “So far, I have seen you masterfully applying those techniques in a ballroom, and with a little more practice, you can daintily trip while out on a stroll at the Park.”
She flushed at his words. “You do not seem to have a very high opinion of these methods, Your Grace.”
“Mainly because Itireof them, my dear.”
She looked at him, and indeed, he seemed rather bored of such underhanded methods. Emily supposed that if she would be subjected to such things day in and day out as Daniel had been, she would grow weary of them, too.
“If you regard them so poorly, why are you teaching them tome?” she asked.
“So that you can do thembetter,” he smiled at her. “And by better, I mean that you do them so naturally that those poor dandies in the Hadley ball will never realize what you are up to.”
“Oh.”
Emily felt her temples beginning to throb as she wondered if she was ever going to pull this off as wonderfully as he expected of her.
“So, shall we begin?” Daniel set aside his teacup and looked intently at her. “Sitting at a salon like this is far more intimate than dancing at a ball or promenading in Hyde Park. Although the door is left open for the sake of propriety, there are things that can be done in such settings that would otherwise meet heavy censure in the ballroom.”
“Such as?” she asked him, her voice breathy as she felt herself being sucked in by the swirling depths of his dark blue eyes.
“When you talk to me, you can touch my arm,” he instructed her softly. “Match it to the rhythm of the conversation, so it does not seem out of place.”
Emily felt herself falling into the spell of his smooth baritone voice. She reached out and gently touched his arm. “Like this?”
“Do it a little more casually,” he urged her. “This is quite effective during playful banter.”
“I am incapable of playful banter,” she shook her head ruefully. “How about something else?”
She felt a sudden dryness in her throat and reached for the teapot to pour herself more tea when she felt his larger hand cover her own.
“An accidental brush of the fingers,” he spoke softly, his voice mesmerizing her. “Eyes meet. Widen your eyes a little as if you are surprised and then flutter your eyelashes, but not too much.”
Emily found herself drawn into the spell of his voice, and without thinking much, she did exactly as he instructed her. The warmth of his hand over hers seared through her, and she found that she could not look away from him.
