“Pah! Be serious.” Stephen laughed as they rounded a corner and walked deeper into the woods.
“I am being serious, Stephen,” Dorothy said with no small amount of pleading in her voice for him to believe her. “It’s just that I hate the way they talk. It is why I didn’t come. I’ve seen this last year what the ton make of anyone who is different.”
“And Lady Charlotte and Lady Frederica? What do they make of you?”
“They’re different,” Dorothy spoke with passion once again. “They have good hearts, and they are truly kind. Not everyone in the ton is like that.”
“Believe me, I know.” Stephen sighed rather heavily, lifting his chin toward the tree branches. “Some in the ton put more stock in how one behaves than what people think or what is in one’s heart. Your politeness, your appearance, is important, and God forbid it is different from the norm. We must all walk around like sheep, following the herd. How dare we be the black sheep at the edge of the field that dares to do something different?”
He spoke with such sharpness that, this time, Dorothy was the one to stop and lay a hand on his arm.
“Stephen?” she whispered, and he looked back at her. “I have never heard you talk like this.”
“What is the point in talking about it?” He shrugged. “My father told me long ago what is expected of us all, especially people like me. Men with titles, land, tenants, duties…” He paused, shaking his head. “We perform like monkeys.”
“And you do not enjoy it?” Dorothy stepped toward him. “Stephen, if you do not enjoy it, then why do you do it?”
“Why do you think Allan and I get along so well?” Stephen asked with a small laugh. “Why do you think I have come to your house for Christmas every year for the last ten years? Why do I spend most days in Allan’s company?”
“Because we are different,” Dorothy said in a small voice.
“Precisely.” Stephen nodded, his tone firm. “You are all my escape from that world.”
“All of us?” Dorothy teased, aware that her hand was still on his arm. He smiled, a little mischievously, clearly reading what she meant.
“Well, who else could I argue with as well as I argue with you? Maybe I have even bickered with you at times when I dare not bicker with others, just to get things off my chest. You always seemed to accept me for it.” He frowned a little. “There was a time I thought you may hate me because of it.”
“I don’t hate you,” Dorothy said hurriedly.
“I know.” Stephen bent his head toward her a little.
For a second, Dorothy thought she saw something in his look. Did he look at her lips again? No, surely not. It was a trick of the moonlight. He had explained that he had never actually wanted to kiss her.
She released him and walked on, and he quickly fell into step beside her again.
“I confess I often felt envy for you and Allan,” he said after another minute of silence. “For the way you two were with your parents.”
“I never met your father,” Dorothy murmured softly. “For ten years of knowing you, not once. What was he like?”
“Strict. He commanded obedience and formality. He did love me, in his own way. I think that’s why when I lost him, I took it so hard.” He scrunched up his face, that frown marring his features. “I didn’t exactly know how to grieve a man I loved, but not with all of my heart.”
“I remember you the day after the funeral,” she murmured. “It was a wonder to me when you finally fell asleep in that chair. Do you know you talk in your sleep, by the way?”
“What?” Stephen tripped on a loose tree branch, whipping around to face her. “Surely not!”
“You do.” She giggled. “Knowing you, I’m amazed you do not argue in your sleep. But yes, you do talk. You kept muttering something. You kept saying the same words over and over again.”
Dorothy thought back to that day, remembering sitting in front of him as he had slept.
It was the softest she had ever felt toward Stephen in her life and the only time she had wanted to wrap him up in cotton wool and protect him from the outside world. He’d murmured in his sleep, turning his head toward her, his face contorted in pain. He’d only softened when she had tucked the blanket around his legs.
“What did I say?” Stephen asked, pulling her back to the present moment.
“The perfect duke.” The words escaped her sadly.
“Ah. Little wonder,” he scoffed, shaking his head. “It is one of the last things my father said to me, and you cannot imagine how it has haunted me since.”
“No?” she asked.
