No one was watching now.
“Goodness, I did not even notice the time passing,” Valeria confessed, sitting back in her chair. “Where did everyone go?”
Duncan gestured vaguely. “They lost interest.”
“So, I am triumphant, and nobody is here to witness it but you?” Valeria pulled a face, though her enchanting green eyes glittered with a merriment he had feared he would not see again.
He began to shuffle the cards. “William tried to stay, but he began yawning, and I do not think he wanted you to see that, so he joined the gentlemen in the corner.”
Over Valeria’s shoulder, he noticed that William was not with the gentlemen at all, but talking to the young lady who had vacated her chair for Duncan.
“Shall we play another?” Valeria asked brightly, apparently unbothered by William’s absence.
Duncan could not deny that her indifference pleased him, but something held him back from agreeing to another game. The debt he already owed her. The part of it that had not yet been paid, regardless of what he had stated to her in his townhouse.
“Maybe, you ought to concentrate on a different game,” he said firmly. “The game of courtship. True, you have beaten me tonight, but I would hate to see you lose a greater prize in the meantime.”
He nodded toward William, watching with a knot in his stomach as Valeria turned to follow his line of sight.
“Yes,” she mumbled. “I think you might be right.”
She rose to her feet, pausing for a moment with her hand resting lightly on the back of her chair. “I know that I won, but I do not need the prize. You are not indebted to me anymore, in any way. I relieve you of thisdebt—I insist, this time.”
With that, she wandered off in William’s direction, though she did not approach him directly. Rather, she used the lessons that Duncan had taught her, drawing William’s attention to her as she feigned a stumble, putting on an embarrassed laugh that no man could possibly resist.
Duncan observed it all, a tight feeling swelling in his chest.I taught her far too well.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Do you actually like the baron?” Beatrice asked, absently trailing a brush through her long, silky hair.
Valeria, who had been mustering the enthusiasm to change for bed, looked up from the nightdress she had been staring at for the past five minutes. “Hmm?”
“The baron. Do you like him?”
“He is… a very nice gentleman.”
Beatrice groaned, shuddering. “You are sublime, Valery! You should not settle for ‘very nice’. It makes my skin all… prickly, just hearing you say that.” She clicked her tongue. “I knew you were not keen on him. I said as much to Amelia, but she told me to stay out of it.”
“Amelia scolded you?” Valeria found that rather hard to believe.
“Well, no, she was ‘very nice’ about it, but I heard the real meaning in her words,” Beatrice replied. “Do you at least like the viscount?”
Prodding the dip of her temple, Valeria continued to stare at the nightdress. It was far easier than coming up with a reply that would satisfy Beatrice’s insatiable curiosity.
“My goodness, Valery, if you do not like either of them, then why are you entertaining their pursuit?” Beatrice gasped, apparently needing no reply at all to knowexactlywhat Valeria was thinking.
“Because I am out of time and choices,” Valeria murmured, too tired and disheartened to keep skirting around the truth. “There are… difficulties with Skeffington House, and if I do not marry by the Season’s end, then… we shall probably lose it.”
Beatrice jumped up from the cushioned chair by the vanity. “What?”
“You must not breathe a word of it to your mother,” Valeria urged, realizing her mistake too late. “Your father lent my papa some money to rescue the manor, but it was not enough. He cannot ask for more, and your mother does not know of any of this, so you must not say anything.”
The younger woman paled, her mouth parting in a horrified ‘o’. Her hand flew to her chest, her kindly eyes brimming with sudden tears. “And that is why you must marry now?Yourlife, your happiness, is the cost of saving Skeffington?”
“It is my duty and my privilege,” Valeria replied, her voice sticking in her throat. “I would doanythingto save Skeffington, and I mean that with all my heart. As long as I have that home to visit, and everything is as it has always been, I shall be content.”
Beatrice shook her head. “But… how can this be? Where is your father’s fortune?”
