Now Eugenie did smile. He was back in her good books again, he thought with relief and then wondered why he cared so much. It was a mystery to him, just as most things to do with women were a mystery; it was just that normally he didn’t care and with Eugenie he did.
Tea arrived and with it polite conversation. Eugenie took over the pouring of the beverage as if she’d done it all her life, handing out cups, sorting through the trays of cake and sandwiches so that both Terry and the duke were given their choice.
Here, she was in her element.
Eugenie knew polite conversation was one of her strong points—she was particularly good at putting others at ease—and she proceeded to do so. The awkwardness of the moment in the gallery was gone and, thankfully, the duke did not mention it again. They were getting on so well, chatting about this and that. Just for a moment she let herself imagine that Sinclair was thinking what a wonderful duchess she would make.
I knew at that moment I had to marry her.
She pictured the wedding, or tried to, but she had never attended a society wedding and the detail eluded her. And things in her fantasy kept going wrong. When she got to the point where her brothers and Erik the goat were running wild down the aisle, she gave up on it and asked the duke if he wanted more tea.
Sinclair handed over his cup. He wasn’t thinking about Eugenie’s conversational skill or that she
would make a wonderful duchess.
Sinclair was imagining what it would be like to kiss her.
The idea came upon him with shocking abruptness, like a dash of cold water on a hot day. He’d been staring into her green eyes, which really were like the clearest of ocean pools, and then his gaze wandered to the dear little freckles sprinkling her nose. After a moment he found himself watching her lips as she spoke—her words could have been babble for all he was listening—and trying to decide on their exact shade of pink. She smiled a great deal, her mouth curling at the edges rather delightfully. In fact her natural repose was smiling.
And that’s when he knew he wanted to kiss her.
He, who never did anything which might undermine his importance or interfere with his lofty position, wanted to kiss a woman whose family were so far below his own they were almost invisible. He who never knew what to say to a woman once the social niceties were done wanted to get intimate with the by-blow of a randy old king and his chambermaid. He glanced across at her appalling brother and found he’d slipped out of the room. Probably gone to pocket the silver, he thought darkly.
“My mother is currently in London,” he heard himself saying. “She enjoys seeing her friends and attending the opera and the theater. She is far more of a social butterfly than me, I’m afraid.”
“You prefer the country, Your Grace?”
“Yes, I do. What of you, Miss Belmont? Are you heading to the metropolis now you’ve been ‘finished’?”
To look for a rich husband, he almost said.
“My aunt has offered to put me up in London, but I haven’t decided yet. I am required here for the moment—my mother needs help with the twins.”
The twins would be too much for any woman, no matter how much help she had, Sinclair thought.
They were silent, sipping their tea. Eugenie was sitting up straight, her slim figure elegant, her profile turned to him as if she was deep in her own thoughts. Visitors to Somerton were often uncomfortable with its grandeur, overwhelmed by surroundings far above their own, but Eugenie did not seem overwhelmed.
“I wish I could go away from Belmont Hall,” she said suddenly, passionately. “I wish I could leave my family behind and launch myself into a new life.”
She gave him a flicker of a glance, as if uncertain whether her words would offend him in some way. He wasn’t offended. While he did wonder why he’d been the recipient of her unexpected confidence he was rather pleased she’d chosen him.
“Why don’t you?” he said cautiously.
She laughed. “I can see you do not understand the difficulties of common folk. How could you? You have everything you might ever want and if you don’t have it then you can quite simply purchase it or find it or—or take it. You are a duke and everyone defers to you.”
“I would have thought that brings its own bonds and ties. I have obligations and responsibilities, remember?”
“But don’t you sometimes wish you could just throw aside all of it and head off on an adventure? Or do something completely out of character, something wild and dangerous? Have you ever done anything wild and dangerous and—and reckless, Your Grace?”
“Can’t say I have, Miss Belmont.”
She sighed. He found himself wondering what she was thinking. She seemed disappointed in him, as if he’d failed her in some way. Sinclair didn’t want to be a disappointment.
“When I was a young boy, I considered being a tinker the most exciting life I could imagine. Wandering free through the countryside, sleeping under the trees and cooking rabbits over a campfire. No parents to insist I do my lessons or sit up straight at the table, no one to remind me of the heavy burden coming to me when I became duke. But when I began tying Cook’s pots and pans about my person and affecting a tinker’s accent my mother put a stop to my ambitions.”
She smiled, and he felt pleased, as if she was rewarding him for effort. “I remember that tinker. He had long dark hair and a gold earring.”
“I think it was the earring that I wanted most of all.”