His face slackened. “What?”
“I wish to marry a man,” her smile widened, “just. . .like. . .you.”
“No.”
No hesitation whatsoever. How intriguing. “No?”
“You can’t marry a man like me.”
“Why ever not?” She cocked her head to the side. “Is there something wrong with you? Are you not the quintessential man about town?Normallord of the realm? Also, aren’t we so alike?”
“No, no, and no. And don’t ask questions you are not prepared to hear the answers for.”
She propped her chin on her hands. “I am very prepared or I would not have asked. Unless you are the one not prepared to answer.”
“Your impudence is not appreciated.”
“Well, that is certainly nothing new. It also won’t stop me from giving it.”
“Well, I shall give you something in return: a warning. Stay away from Dare.”
“And what if I don’t want to?” She definitely didn’t.
His jaw clenched, and she swore his eyes turned darker. “Then are you sayingheis the same as you? Dare? A libertine with a reputation black as night?”
“He wasn’t born that way,” Leonora pointed out. “But he is closer to being the same as me than Mandeville, Turnberry, or Calstone.”
“Horseshit.”
“Such foul language.” Her gaze lowered to the dark circles beneath Heart’s eyes. He didn’t seem to be sleeping well these days. And he’d appeared no more well-rested when she’d glimpsed his face last evening as he caught sight of the duchess right before he dragged Leonora from the bird spectacle. She’d also seen the way he didnotlook at the duchess, which had seemed more obvious—at least to Leonora’s eyes—than the moment when he had looked at her.
Heart . . .
The duchess . . .
What story was between these two people?
Leonora wanted to question him but refrained. She’d heard the rumors about her brother, noticed the looks some women cast him. Heart had been a rake in the past. She could be wrong, but it could explain his harsh aversion to Dare—he could simply dislike the man as a visible reminder of his own checkered past.
“In any event,” she pushed back her chair and rose to her feet, “I must get ready for the park. Harriet will pick me up later. Shall you be joining us?” Heart at a picnic in a park. The idea seemed so wholly out of place it brought a smile to her face. Probably because she’d never witnessed such a thing in all her life.
“Saints, no.”
Leonora lifted a brow. “Not even to chaperone me?”
He waved her comment aside. “Go and prove your unaffectedness to thetonwith your friends. Send for me when it blows up in your in that pretty face of yours. I shall be waiting on pins and needles.”
Leonora chuckled.
The duchess would be there. Another chance to observe her and their supposed mutual likeness. “In any case, I am also attending in hopes of being introduced to someone,” she murmured to her brother.
He glanced at her curiously. “Who?”
“Oh, no one you’d know.”According to you.
“Why am I feeling suspicious all of a sudden?”
“Perhaps your conscience is bothering you.”
