“Are you not here to chaperone your friend?” Rebecca said in wonder, pointing toward the other side of the room.
“Your mother seems to be doing a capable job of that,” he pointed out. “What is the harm in passing the time in conversation with you? I am hardly bad company.”
“You think well of your conversation,” she teased as she sat down in her seat once more. Something in her mind told her it would have been wise to cross the room to escape him, yet she hadn’t. Her body had somehow capitulated, sitting down again. She tried to persuade herself it had nothing to do with the handsome smile.
“Many women would say I am good company,” he whispered the words, as if he knew he was talking of scandal.
“I have not said that yet.” Her challenge was enough to pull a chuckle from him. She rather liked being the one to make him laugh. She was tempted by the idea of making him laugh again when her attention was drawn across the room.
Eliza was talking so animatedly with Lady Herberton that it was impossible to look elsewhere.
“You truly are concerned for your sister, are you not?” the Duke said, his tone somewhat softer and more serious than before.
“Call it good sense.” Rebecca was not going to be deterred from her worry yet. “Forgive me, Your Grace. If you say your friend is a good man, then I am willing to believe you, but I do not yet know him. Neither does my sister. Yet she is looking up at him as if he is the sun himself.”
“She rather is, isn’t she?” the Duke said with a smile. “I cannot hold onto your worries though. I am simply glad someone is looking at my friend with the adoration he deserves.”
“Adoration?” She laughed at the idea. “Is it possible to put adoration into a look?”
“You have never been looked at in such a way then?” he asked, leaning toward her.
“I refer you to my name being in the scandal sheets for your answer,” she spoke tightly, not wanting to enter into this conversation again. It was plain from what they had discussed last night that the Duke knew her name was mentioned in the gossip columns when her betrothal had ended on a sour note. She did not need to go into the particulars. She returned her gaze back to Eliza, not aware what the Duke was doing until she heard a ruffle of papers.
“What is this?” he asked, lifting the papers, before Rebecca could snatch them away from him.
Oh no…no one can see what is written there!
Chapter Four
“Your Grace, that is not to be read.” Lady Rebecca’s words were panicked as she tried to take the papers away.
Timothy acted on impulse. There was something about the way the lady had blushed that made him eager to see what was written there. He half turned in his seat, taking the papers out of her reach so he could read something of it. In their new position, she couldn’t take the papers away from him without causing a scene.
“What is it?” he asked as his eyes danced across the words written there. It was clear they were written in a lady’s hand, perhaps Lady Rebecca’s, with gentle words scrawled across the pages.
‘…the winter frost turns the ground hard, unyielding,
It is the path we must all tread at some point
Where the road we walk on can cut our skin…’
“It’s poetry,” he murmured in realization. There was something about the words that stuck with him. It was almost as if the words had been whispered in his very ear, resonating somewhere. “Did you write this?” he asked, looking back to Lady Rebecca.
She had blushed so much that he felt guilty. Her cheeks had turned an even darker shade of red than when Alexander had spilled his champagne on her dress the night before.
“It is not for reading. It is not finished yet. Forgive me,” she whispered the words as she leaned forward, and finally managed to snatch some of the papers out of his grasp. It was all but one, leaving behind another scrap. Her eyes widened, in a kind of horror as she realized what was left behind.
Timothy couldn’t help himself and read the scraps of verse left on the paper.
‘…until one has danced in a storm, we have not truly been hurt.
Only when a heart is torn up by wind and left to rot in dirt…’
“Lady Rebecca.” Timothy was struggling for words. He hadn’t read such verse before. He wanted to read more, but the last scrap of paper was taken from his grasp.
He looked to her, seeing her stuffing the papers in the writing desk beside them with keen vigor, blushing so much that he felt the guilt overwhelm him. “I owe you an apology,” he said quietly, leaning forward in his chair. “I did not know it was something personal to you. I merely meant to…have fun with you.” He knew it was a weak excuse. He had seen the chance to be playful, that was all.
“I do not show anyone my poetry, Your Grace,” she said so hurriedly and quietly that he had to lean toward her all the more, the better to hear her. “I would be grateful if you would not speak of it to anyone.”
