Page 19 of The Duke’s Masked Wallflower

“Do you know well enough to make such assumptions?” Mrs. Levant asked.

“Only what I have heard from Lady Chipping.”

Elisabeth glanced up. “We traveled together recently. She is a lovely young creature, so very knowledgeable and kind. Is Mr. Sinclair deserving of her?”

Beatrice gave an expression of uncertainty. “Only time will tell. Miss Winthrop is a fair enough girl, I agree, but there is a particular sort of woman who simply cannot secure what she wants, however many Seasons she is given to try. I have watched it happen to that family before, and I daresay I shall watch it happen again. Even if Edmund is so determined to marry once more as a knight in shining armor, I predict Miss Winthrop will find a way to lose his interest.”

Gabriel said nothing, but the words burrowed into him like a splinter working its way beneath his skin. He thought of Miss Winthrop’s chin lifting in her drawing room, her voice steady as she’d told him to leave; he thought, less willingly, of the terrace.

How could she be used to men not wanting her? How could she lose his interest, he thought, and he did not like how easily the knowledge of her and Mr. Sinclair slotted into place beside everything Miss Winthrop had told him about the gentleman she had hoped to entice. Something like that could drive a woman to take extreme measures to secure a husband. It must have been Sinclair all along.

“You are very free with your opinions of her,” Gabriel said, returning his attention to Mrs. Levant while her husband was speaking with his aunt. “Especially for a woman who claims only a passing acquaintance.”

“I have known the Winthrops a great deal longer than in passing, Your Grace. Longer, I think, than is comfortable for us to discuss at a dinner party.” Her smile did not waver, though something colder moved behind it. “But I shall leave you to your evening. I only thought you ought to know what you are looking at, if you meant to look.”

She drifted away on her husband’s arm before he could press her further. He did not manage a word alone with the Winthrops before dinner was called. Once the company began filing toward the dining room, he realized his Aunt Elisabeth had disappeared before him on the way in. It was only after place cards had been found, murmured introductions had been made, and chairs scraped as people sought their places, that he discovered that he had been seated directly beside her by their Peachey hosts.

“Your Grace.” She said the honorific carefully, and settled into her chair slowly without really looking at him. The ivory fabric of her gown caught the light, making her hair look even warmer than usual and her skin look paler against it.

“Miss Winthrop,” he returned in kind. “I confess I did not arrange this, though I shall happily take the credit if our proximity at dinner improves your evening even marginally.”

“It remains to be seen whether it will—even marginally.”

He unfolded his napkin, glancing sideways at her. In the candlelight she looked less armored than she had in her mother’s drawing room. “I saw you arrive with Mr. Sinclair,” he said after a minute, because he could think of nothing else that he wanted to say more.

She started, but quickly checked her expression. “Yes, I did. We drove with him here from our home. He called on my father before we arrived.”

“You seem to be getting on well with him.”

“Well enough, I think.” She said it without artifice, but her tone indicated it pleased her that Gabriel knew she was settled. “He does not make a game of every conversation for one thing, which is different from what I am used to with some other gentlemen. He is forthright and very considerate.”

He allowed a beat to pass, watching the rest of the guests seat themselves and take up their own conversations before he said, “How dull that must be for you.”

“Why dull? It is a relief to be in the company of such a gentleman, Your Grace, whatever you may believe.”

He turned his wine glass by its stem, and then, because Beatrice’s words haunted him, he leaned a fraction closer than the conversation required. The scent of her perfume reached him over the candles, and his skin tingled at the nape of his neck. His eyes flitted over her skin, which was dappled like gooseflesh.

“Tell me something, Miss Winthrop, just between us.” His voice dropped, low enough to be private amid the general clatter of the table. He served himself wine, and then filled her glass without resistance. “Does he know about the terrace yet? Was he witness to our tryst? He must have been, for your story to make sense.”

Miss Winthrop’s glass of sparkling wine, halfway to her mouth, froze in midair. She pursed her lips. “That is a wicked question to ask a woman before dinner has even begun,” she managed, color climbing up her neck.

“I ask many wicked questions.”

“Are they not supposed to teach boys that wickedness is a sin?”

“There were many things I was not taught. More’s the pity for you.”

She turned to face him then, her eyes sharp and trained on him with sudden confidence. “Were you raised in the wild, Your Grace?”

He laughed privately, not wanting to alert the attention of the dinner guests around them. “Something like that; why not?” He watched her as she brought a grape to her mouth, watched the fruit push past the lips that had once been locked with his. In a low voice, he asked, “Have you kissed him yet?”

She seemed like she wanted to respond. But whatever she meant to say was lost because, in that same instant, she inhaled sharply, whether from the question or bad luck, and her eyes started bulging.

He wondered what was happening, until she reached for her water, brought it to her mouth, and promptly put it back down again.

“Miss Winthrop?” he asked, heart racing.

She was choking.