Desiring The Duke (Strong Women Find True Love 4)

“Because I am neither available for the ladies, nor am I full of boisterous political opinions for the men.” He took another taste of the soup, which seemed to confirm his original opinion. He placed his spoon on the soup bowl’s saucer and slid it slightly away from himself.

“I see,” Anne said. “And which is the lovely Duchess Amhurst?” She peered to his other side, but the seat was occupied by a middle-aged woman who was clearly with her husband on her own left side. Perhaps his wife had not accompanied him.

But the duke shook his head. “I am unmarried. I am simply… not ready for the responsibility of marriage yet.”

That struck Anne as odd. First impression didn’t cast the man as the rakish type, not yet ready to settle down. He seemed as far removed from the Earl of Carteret’s demeanor as possible. Maybe he was sly…? No, that wasn’t a charitable assumption, though Anne herself didn’t see what the fuss was about if a man decided he preferred the company of other men.

Suddenly, an idea came to Anne. If she could find a suitable man who was as… confined by their choices as she was, perhaps they could come to an agreement that would benefit both. But she needed to be sure this man was oriented toward other men. She would have to delicately feel him out.

Giving him a gracious smile as she took a sip of her wine – gah, it was rancid stuff – Anne probed, “I see. Do you have a fellow bachelor-in-arms here with you tonight?” She affected a casual tone, hoping he wouldn’t catch on until it was established that she was a sympathetic ear.

Lawrence shook his head again. “Not a bachelor, no, but my childhood friend Charles, Baron Strathe, eldest son of the Earl of Southshire, is here, though he is married.” He gestured to the far end of the table, where a man with a closely trimmed beard that left his upper lip bare was regaling several guests some tale that had the young and old alike roaring with laughter. Two younger girls who looked to be sisters sat to his right, while a couple in their middle years were across from him. It was a pity he was at the end of the table, because he seemed to be great fun from what Anne could see. Neither of the girls were likely to be his wife, so he must have come alone. Yes, he and the duke must be close friends indeed. Anne smelled an opportunity.

Leaning back to allow a servant to remove her untouched soup, Anne decided to plunge ahead. She hated to think of it, but her father likely had only weeks left. It would kill him – well, not kill him – if she was not in a stable situation before he passed.

“Lawrence, I hope this is not too forward, but you have the most marvelous… er… hands,” she put forth lamely. Christ, how did men move in on women so directly? It made her far more nervous than she’d anticipated. Attempting to recover, she tilted her head with a smile as the fish course was laid before each guest.

Giving her a confused look, the somber duke nodded and took the opportunity to focus on the plate before him, effectively cutting off the conversation.

Flustered, Anne took a moment to gather her wits. Did she really want to press this conversation? Glancing at Sir Gilbert, who was busy moving forks and salt cellars around the table to demonstrate some principle of military command, she decided yes. If nothing else, she knew no one in her vicinity of the table, and the dinner was likely to be the standard ten courses. She had little else to do, and an entire evening to explore if her intuition about the man was correct.

Anne had never been shy about being bold, though the idea that she was about to press the idea of a marriage of convenience with a man who was sly… And that was to say nothing of someone she’d just met. But a disinterested man who was happy to leave her to her own devices might well be the best she could do. Well, sometimes you had to hold your nose and close your eyes.

“And your… eyes, well, I thought I might very well see into your… tortured… soul?” she quipped, trying to pry some manner of reaction from the man at her flank. Her compliments, couched as they were in curiosity, seemed only to further entrench the stoic man in whatever manner of dither had taken him. “If only you could spend the evening at Charles’s side…” she further insinuated in a hushed whisper. Brow lofted, the duke utterly confused the implication.

“Well, he’s… certainly a friend, Charles is, and I do enjoy his company at these sorts of events, I suppose,” he admitted. An equivocating admission perhaps, Anne wagered, and furtively she advanced her line of questioning.

“I sympathize, tr

uly, I do. I had a dear friend, Ulysses, who felt quite the same way of his friend, Anton,” Anne recounted with a slightly facetious melancholy. “I’m bound by tradition and expectation myself, in fact,” she lamented quietly. “Though my chains are… perhaps a tad different than your own.”

“Indeed,” he sighed, full of regret, his watchful eyes passing through the crowd. “If only our world understood the complexities of emotion as well as we feel it in our minds.”

“Yes!” Anne exclaimed, both a statement of agreement and a quiet indulgence in the excitement in discovering a man positioned perfectly to provide her the convenient marriage she needed. He could enjoy his life freely with Charles, and she would live free just as she chose to. “Erm… if only, if only,” she added. “If only…” she gulped, a coy smile spreading on her lips. “If only they understood the bonds that… that you, and Charles share…”

“The…” Lawrence glanced to her with confusion alight in his eyes. “B… onds?”

“Yes! Of course, the…” she stammered. “I understand your pain. If only they knew of the… brotherhood, of the…”

“Miss,” Lawrence spoke suddenly in his deep and alluring baritone. “There’s no need to play nor dance in your words,” he continued.

“I-I’m not… do you truly wish to be so bold as to speak aloud about your love, here?” Anne whispered.

“My l…” realization came at once to the duke, whose stoic and dour manner cracked all at once, like limestone beneath the blow of sharpened chisel and heavy hammer. He laughed, loud enough for the whole table to hear, and Anne’s cheeks burned utterly red. “You think I’m in love with Charles, do you?”

“I’m… I, I mean, quite… I had… ahem…” Anne stumbled across her words, trying fruitlessly to regain her composure. “In p… point of fact, I meant—”

“Oh no, m’lady, he’s most certainly not my type, not my type at all,” Lawrence joked merrily. “That beard of his - so out of season,” he said, glancing across the room at his friend. Though her guts burned with embarrassment, that this fellow had taken her implications in so delighted a manner brought a crack of a smile to her face. “And he’s honestly far too portly for my tastes. Don’t you think?”

“I… I think he’s…” Anne giggled.

“And he can be a bore, prattling on about games of politics and money,” Lawrence chided self-deprecatingly. “It’s as if he knows nothing of the finer parts of life. Literature and romance, and affairs of the heart. There is also, of course,” Lawrence stated pointedly, “the fact that he is a man. That does put a damper on our potential relationship, m’lady.”

“I’m sorry,” Anne begged through a laugh. “I didn’t mean to imply—”

“Do you think yourself to first to come to those sorts of conclusions? Why else do you think I’m situated where I am at the table, m’lady?” he spoke glibly, his manner shifting towards the warm at the rather humorous mix up. “The earl is proud to have a man like myself in his company. Keeps the gossip quiet.”

“Oh, I’ve no interest in such things,” she says with a chuckle.