Dukes By the Dozen полностью

Puck’s company was beginning to look attractive. He was soft and warm, he purred, he didn’t chatter or leer or mash a lady’s toes. In his way, he was hand—

“Lady Iris, the supper waltz approaches.”

Clonmere had come upon Iris in the gallery that ran parallel to the ballroom. The duke was tall and imposing in his evening attire, though a gleam in his eye hinted of something not quite civilized.

And even that, that hint of determination or impatience, whatever it was, made him interesting to Iris.

“Your Grace.” She curtseyed. “You found me.”

“Were you hiding?”

Yes—from all the gaiety and joy in the ballroom. “Not from you. I sought cooler air. The weather has become mild.” The evening was warm enough that the ballroom was growing uncomfortable.

“The terrace beckons.” He offered his arm. “Shall we steal a moment of peace and quiet?”

He’d never escorted Iris, never led her out. She took his arm with a sense of wistfulness bounded by resentment. She was one of Falmouth’s daughters. By the rules of this silly courting game, she should have at least danced with Clonmere a few times.

“I am desperate to get back to Surrey,” Clonmere said. “I have the sense the ladies are desperate that the Season should never end. What of you, do you long for the country, or is Town your preferred habitat?”

“I’d forgotten your family seat is in Surrey.”

The terrace was quiet and inviting, lit by enough torches to chase the shadows into the garden.

“I hack out as many mornings as I can,” Clonmere said, “because the maples remind me of the forest back home. You didn’t answer my question.’

He led her down the steps, onto a gravel walk. The illumination along the walk was intermittent, which emphasized the garden’s scents. Too early for roses, though the lavender was evident, and tulips were still making a show. The daffodils were fading, and yet their sweetness lingered on the air.

“I prefer to be where my family is,” Iris said. “The first two years after the late countess presented me, I was the only daughter who came up to Town in spring. That was lonely.” Particularly with the earl quibbling over ever yard of ribbon and pair of slippers the countess insisted on buying.

Clonmere steered her toward a shadowed bench. “Are you lonely now?”

Iris took a seat and the duke came down beside her. “That is a very personal question, Your Grace.” A very painful question.

“I bring my whole family up to Town when I must be here, or as many as I can bribe and wheedle into coming along. Mama loves the shopping, the cousins love Mama, and I love them all.”

And soon, if he didn’t already, he’d include one of Iris’s sisters in the happy, lucky horde. A thought more painful than loneliness threatened: What if Iris, aging and unmarried, lost Cousin Hattie, and had to become one of Clonmere’s tribe of relations?

“The waltz will start soon,” Iris said. “We should be going inside.”

Clonmere remained on the bench beside her. “Might I confide a secret? I’m all waltzed out. I have no more waltzes, minuets, quadrilles, gavottes or Roger de Coverley’s in me. Not tonight. Your sisters have worn me to flinders.”

I want my waltz. And yet, Iris was also relieved. To twirl around in Clonmere’s arms, pretending to be merely amused, pretending to merely enjoy what Iris would instead be savoring and resenting and treasuring…. Clonmere’s demurral was in truth a reprieve.

“My sisters thrive on society’s entertainments. You will have a waltzing duchess, Your Grace. Best accommodate that reality now, even if it’s not precisely what you wish for.”

Clonmere plucked a flower from the urn beside the bench. “What do you wish for? If you had a fairy godmother, and she granted you a wish-come-true, what would it be, Lady Iris?”

Just as the duke was out of waltzes, Iris was out of witty rejoinders. The plain, honest truth begged to be spoken, if only this once, if only to a man making conversation to avoid the ballroom.

“A wish? My deepest, most secret wish?”

“The wish your heart whispers as you drift into dreams, that wish.”

To not end up with Puck-hair all over my life. To not be a burden on my family. To never… but those wishes were all in the negative. What did Iris wish for affirmatively? She had the sense Clonmere would wait for her answer until Michaelmas, though by then he’d be married to some sister or other.

A lady and a gentleman on the terrace pretended to admire the moonlit garden, though in truth they were standing too close to each other, and like Iris, probably enjoying the simple warmth of a companion in close quarters.