Page 4 of How Not to Marry a Duke

"Your Majesty." Her curtsey was rigid, formal, nothing like the laughing creature of moments before. "Your Grace. If you will excuse me."

She walked—walked with great dignity whilst trailing ribbons and clutching her skirts, she did not flee—toward the palace, one child upon each hand and her bare feet leaving prints in the damp grass.

Frederick watched her go.

He counted her steps. Twenty-three before she disappeared through the garden door.

This is ridiculous, he told himself. You are counting her steps. Like a madman. Like a fool. Like a man who has spent nine years trying very hard not to think about a clumsy kiss in a stable.

"Well." Edward's voice cut through his internal catalogue of personal failures. "That was unfortunate."

"She seemed... spirited."

"She is a menace." But there was reluctant affection beneath Edward's exasperation. "The children adore her, which is the only reason Ella permits these... episodes. But I shall have words with her about appropriate behaviour when guests are present."

"There is no need⁠—"

"There is every need. She is six and twenty, unmarried, and cavorting about with her limbs exposed for any passing duke to observe." Edward shot him a sharp look that held rather more perception than Frederick found comfortable. "Speaking of which. You are staring after her as though she were water and you had been crawling through a desert."

"I was not⁠—"

"You were." Edward's hand landed upon his shoulder, heavy with the weight of old friendship and the particular authority of a man who had known him since they were both spotty youths with more pride than sense. "Frederick. You are engaged. The Ashworth contract, remember?"

The words landed like a blow to the chest.

The contract. Lady Penelope. The wedding in six months that shall bind me forever to a woman I have met twice and for whom I feel nothing.

"I recall." His voice emerged rough. "How could I forget?"

Edward studied him for a long moment, something resembling sympathy in his expression. "Come along. Ella truly will have my head if I fail to deliver you for tea. And Frederick?"

"Yes?"

"Whatever you are thinking regarding my sister-in-law—" Edward's tone turned dry. "We are attempting to find her a suitable match, assuming she does not foil our efforts entirely. And you are already engaged."

Frederick did not point out that he had not been thinking anything. Thinking implied intention. What he had been doing was something far less dignified—something closer to drowning.

Fourteen threads of gold. Twenty-three steps to the door. One clumsy kiss that ruined you for every proper, sensible woman you have met since.

He followed Edward into the palace, telling himself very firmly that it did not matter. Tomorrow he would be at Carthedge, surrounded by wedding preparations and contract negotiations and the slow, relentless march toward a future he had chosen. Lady Florinda would remain here at the palace, playing pirates with children and scandalising the household staff, and their paths need not cross again.

He told himself this.

He did not believe it.

Carthedge Hall and Ashbourne House shared a border. He had grown up riding the paths between them. And Florinda—Lady Florinda—was the Queen's sister, which meant she would be at every royal function, every state dinner, every interminable ball where he would be expected to stand beside his perfectly adequate bride and feel nothing.

Whilst she would be somewhere nearby, barefoot and laughing and alive in a way that made his carefully constructed numbness feel like death.

The tea was excellent. The conversation was pleasant. Frederick sat in the Queen's drawing room and smiled at the appropriate moments and counted the minutes until he could reasonably excuse himself.

Forty-seven minutes. Two cups of tea. Three enquiries about the wedding that he answered with practised courtesy.

And underneath it all, like a splinter he could not extract: fourteen threads of gold, catching the light like something from a story he had no right to want.

Tomorrow, he would leave for Carthedge.

Tomorrow, he would begin the slow march toward his perfectly acceptable future.