Page 27 of The Duke’s Masked Wallflower

She would send the Duke of Hartmere her answer that night.

In the end, there was no need.

The dinner that evening was much smaller than the Peachey affair, and was hosted at their own home, which made it remarkably more manageable for Rosalie, even though the simple din of cutlery and a service of pre-prandial drinks brought to mind a host of uncomfortable memories. The short guest list did not help.

Lady Chipping arrived exactly on time, beaming and shimmering, dressed head to toe in burgundy Italian silks. It took Rosalie no time at all to understand why her mother had been so pleased to reconnect with their former traveling companion. Within minutes of arriving, Lady Winthrop and Lady Chipping fell into the easy shorthand of old friends. By the time sherry was being poured, they were deep into a story about some evening in Vienna involving a gondola and her father losing a shoe he never actually recovered.

“I still very much owe you for that shoe, Baron Winthrop,” Lady Chipping was saying, taking a clumsy sip from her third sherry. “You and I may take a trip down Bond Street on the morrow. You bring your other shoe to the duke’s cobbler⁠—”

Her father laughed. “The other shoe is gone, my fair lady.”

“No!”

“Why, yes. I gave it to the farrier’s dogs as a chew toy,” he managed to get out between bursts of communal laughter. He was also on his third drink. “What was the point... in having one shoe!”

Rosalie glanced at the clock. Surely dinner should have been served ten minutes ago. She took another sip of her water and let the story wash over her. She was grateful for anything that did not require her own participation while her nerves gathered themselves for the evening ahead. She found herself watching the door more than was proper. Something felt amiss.

He was late in the end. That’s what they said, at least. And when she asked her mother discreetly why she had not mentioned that the Duke of Hartmere had also been invited, Lady Winthrop declared she had forgotten—that it was a last-minute change of plans, and that she was sorry.

The duke hurried into the drawing room with a wide smile to his aunt. He pressed a kiss on Lady Chipping’s cheek. He did not even bother looking Rosalie’s way, charming her parents instead with apologies mixed with greetings.

“You should have seen the traffic,” he said, taking the drink her father offered him. “All through Westminster. Is something happening today I do not know about? I almost got out and came on foot. Would have walked too, if not for the rain. Certainly, I told myself, arriving tardily is less of an insult than arriving wet to such an esteemed home as this.”

“And so fashionable, Your Grace,” her mother said, ignoring his compliment but blushing. She looked like the cat who got the cream—a real-life duke in her finest drawing room. “That’s how they’re doing it on the continent, aren’t they, Lady Chipping? The contessas were always late to the parties in Venice.”

“And in Milan.”

“Oh, yes. In Milan!” Lady Winthrop nodded, laughing. “Too close to the border.”

As the two women launched into another tale, Rosalie caught his eye across the room. Something passed between them that needed no words at all. A little tilt of his head, a question. She glanced at the door once her father sat down by the fire, his eyes already starting to close with drink and sleep.

It was not difficult to find a moment alone with him. There was a small library off the drawing room that Rosalie had claimed for her own; when the party drifted toward the piano to drunkenly play some Italian songs before dinner, Rosalie excused herself with a murmur about needing air. She was not surprised, three minutes later, to find that the Duke of Hartmere had excused himself too.

“Do you think the meal will ever come?” he asked the moment he entered. He closed the door behind them but left it ajar. “I shan’t lie to you; if you plied them with drinks to execute this private intercourse⁠—”

“You believe me to be much more Machiavellian than I am.”

“Hopefully, I have not missed the mark by too much. I like a schemer.”

He smiled. That expression always made her knees go weak, but it was even worse when they were unchaperoned. If anyone caught them now... Well, she supposed that hardly mattered, given the likely trajectory of this moment.

“You have decided something, then,” he said with a sigh. “I can see it on your sober little face. You do wear your decisions plainly, Miss Winthrop... whatever else you manage to hide from me and everyone else, though I would like to think I am special.”

“That is not a comforting thing to hear from you.”

Something flickered across his face. It was surprise, she thought, though he covered it quickly.

“You are agreeing that you are a schemer or that I am special?” he said.

“I did not say either of those things.”

“But I could tell that’s where you were headed.”

She guffawed. “Do you know me so intimately already, Your Grace, that you can read my mind and all my thoughts?”

He gave a side smile this time. “Somewhat intimately.”

“I hate you,” she whispered, not meaning it at all and smiling.