Loved by a Duke (The Heart of a Duke #4)(11)

Daisy paused at the fringe of the ballroom entrance and scanned the twirling couples, bathed in the soft glow from the chandelier ablaze with candles. She leaned against the column and took in the unadulterated smiles, the exultant laughs. Had she ever been that happy? Shoving aside the familiar melancholy, she scanned the hall. Daisy searched for and then found her mother staring sadly out at the dancers.

Just then a buzz filled the ballroom like a million swarming bees. Daisy followed the rabid stares and whispers and she stilled.

Auric stood at the entrance of the ballroom. Her heart quickened at his broad, powerful figure towering above the crowded room; a king amongst mere mortals. And she wished she could look away, wished she could be different than every other hopeful and equally hopeless young lady present. Alas, she’d lost her heart to him early on. The whispers became murmurs from eager mamas desperate to make a match between their daughters and the mighty duke, who’d proven with his courtship of Lady Stanhope he was, in fact, in the market for a wife.

“He is here. Pretty face, dear,” one eager mama whispered to her golden haired, just out that Season, daughter.

The young lady puffed her chest out and tipped her chin up in an attempt to capture Auric’s notice.

Daisy resisted the urge to point her gaze to the ceiling. Not that anyone would have noticed if she were, in fact, pointing her gaze anywhere, or hopping on one foot, or spinning in a circle. Least of all, Auric. Only she seemed to suspect the truth. The Duke of Crawford wasn’t just in the market for a wife. He’d been in the market for a particular wife. Two vastly different things. He’d selected Lady Stanhope and, following Daisy’s meeting with the woman in the conservatory, she could hardly blame him for the wise decision.

She claimed a spot beside the white, Scamozzi column and used the moment to study him. How effortlessly he moved through the throng of guests, with a casual grace most men could strive to emulate and never hope to master. Gentlemen dropped deep, deferential bows. Ladies dipped their eyes and touched a hand to their surely fluttering hearts.

While other ladies wanted Auric for his title, Daisy didn’t give a fig about the title of duchess. She wanted him to be the man she’d once known him to be. She wanted that man, who’d rescued a girl in need of frequent rescuing. After Lionel’s death, however, Auric had become a stiff, somber figure. The ton, who didn’t truly know him, attributed his austereness to that title of duke. She knew the truth. He’d been forever changed by the loss they’d both suffered. Now, Auric was the one desperately requiring saving and foolish Daisy had, of course, set her sights upon being that person. Whether he wanted it or not.

Auric paused beside the host and hostess. His hard lips moved, the words lost to the distance between them. She searched for a hint of the grinning young man he’d once been. Years had added depth and strength to his features and form. The harsh, angular planes of his face, the aquiline nose may as well have been chiseled in stone. His fashionably cropped chestnut hair with the slightest tendency to curl, the same rich, brown hue she’d once envied him for. Gone was the lean, narrow frame, instead replaced with whip-chord muscles. He shifted and the black fabric of his evening coat pulled over the taut muscle of his triceps. Her heart kicked up a beat.

Why couldn’t he be one of those doddering, old, monocle-wearing dukes? It would be vastly easier to hate him—the polite, remote man she barely recognized.

As though he felt her stare upon him, he stiffened. With his cold, aloof gaze, he skimmed the ballroom. The distant glint in his eyes hinted at his boredom over the inane amusements. Then his stare collided with Daisy’s. The ghost of a smile played on Auric’s lips and her heart sped up. She returned his grin. Just then, their host and hostess said something to their revered guest which called his attention away from Daisy. The hard mask was firmly back in place. Had she merely imagined the slight softening when he’d found her in the crowd?

Perhaps those years of laughter and teasing she remembered spent with him and Lionel had been merely conjurings of a lonely, sad, little girl. Except, there had been a smile. Though faint and quick, it had been, at least, real. Though logic and propriety told her to look away and allow him to carry on as he did at these stiff, stodgy soirees, she caught his eye across the heads of the twirling dancers and winked twice, in rapid succession—their silent, unspoken secret shared between them.

He hesitated a moment. His gaze lingered on the top of her head and then he looked away.

Embarrassment slapped her cheeks. Of course, one would have to notice Daisy Meadows to have recognized the lady had been given the cut directly. By Auric. And Society paid little notice of the shelf wallflower. She folded her arms across her chest and tightened her mouth into a mutinous line. He thought to ignore her. Avoid her as though he’d not tugged at her curls when she’d been but a child and promised to make her his duchess. Granted she’d been but eleven years old. Still, a promise was a promise.

With determination in her step, she started across the ballroom.

Auric might see her as nothing more than Lionel’s younger sister, but he should have a care. For she intended to hunt down that blasted pendant, and by God, when she did, she was going to have his damned heart.





Chapter 3

Christ. She’d winked twice.

It had been…Auric’s mind raced…some seven years or so since either of them had winked at each other. So long, in fact, that he’d nearly forgotten that secret code only they two had known.