Loved by a Duke (The Heart of a Duke #4)(5)

“What is that?” His sharp bark of laughter caught her momentarily unawares. The sound emerged rusty, as if from ill use, but rich and full, nonetheless. She missed his laughter. She’d still rather it not be directed her way.

“Oh, hush.” She jerked the frame back onto her lap. Then she glanced down eyeing the scrap. It really wasn’t that bad. Or perhaps it was. After all, she’d spent several years trying to perfect this blasted image and could, herself, barely decipher the poor attempt. “What do you think it is?” She really was quite curious.

“I daresay I’d require another glance.”

Daisy turned it back around and held it up for his inspection. Silence stretched on. Surely, he had some manner of guess? “Well?” she prodded.

“I’m still trying to make it out,” he murmured as if to himself. Lines of consternation creased his brow. “A circle with a dip in the center?”

“Precisely.” Precisely what she’d taken it as, anyway. Daisy tossed the frame atop the table, inadvertently rustling the gossip sheet and drawing Auric’s attention from one embarrassment—to the next.

As bold as though he sat in his own parlor, he reached for the paper. With alacrity, Daisy swiped it off the table just as his fingers brushed the corner of the sheets. “You don’t read gossip.” She dropped it over her shoulder where it sailed to the floor in a noisy rustle. “Dukes don’t read scandal sheets.”

“And you have a good deal of experience with dukes, do you?” Amusement underscored his question.

She didn’t have a good deal of experience with any gentlemen. “You’re my only duke,” she confided. Couldn’t very well go mentioning her remarkable lack of insight with gentlemen.

His lips twitched again.

A servant rushed into the room bearing a silver tray of biscuits and tea, cutting into whatever he intended to say. The young woman set her burden on the table before them and dipped a curtsy, then backed out of the room. Daisy’s maid, Agnes reentered and took a seat in the corner, with her own embroidery. The servant was far more impressive with a needle than Daisy could ever hope to be.

“How is your mother?”

Ah, of course. The reason for his visit. Auric, the Duke of Crawford, was the ever respectful, unfailingly polite gentleman.

“She is indisposed,” she said with a deliberate vagueness. Only Auric truly understood the depth of her mother’s misery and, even so, not the full extent of the woman’s sorrow. Daisy would not draw him into her sad, sorry, little world. She reached for the porcelain teapot and steeped a delicate cup full, adding milk and three sugars. She ventured he had enough of his own sad, sorry, little world.

Auric accepted the fragile, porcelain cup. “Thank you,” he murmured, taking a sip.

“Well, out with it.” Daisy poured another, also with milk and three sugars. “After your absence, there must be a reason for your visit.”

“Am I not permitted to call?”

She snorted. “You’re a duke. I venture, you’re permitted to do anything you want.” Just so the new stodgier version of his younger self knew she jested, Daisy followed her words with a wink.



Daisy stared expectantly back at him.

Auric considered her question. Why do I visit? Repeatedly. Again and again. Week after week. Year after year.

The truth was guilt brought him back. It was a powerful sentiment that had held him in an unrelenting grip for seven years and he suspected always would. Selfishly, there were times he wished Daisy was invisible. But she wasn’t. Nor would she ever be. No matter how much he willed it. “Come, Daisy,” Auric took a sip and then provided the safe, polite answer. “I enjoy your company. Surely you know that.”

She choked on her tea. “Why, that was a bit belated.”

He frowned, not particularly caring to have the veracity of his words called into question—even if it was by a slip of a lady he’d known since she’d been a blubbering, babbling babe.

“I referred to your response,” she clarified, unnecessarily. Then, like a governess praising her charge, Daisy leaned over and patted him on the knee. “It was still, however, very proper and polite.”

“Are you questioning my sincerity?” Having known her since she’d been in the nursery, and he a boy of eight, there was nothing the least subservient or simpering about Daisy Meadows.

“Just a bit,” she whispered and winked once more. Then a seriousness replaced the twinkle of mirth in her eyes. “I gather you’ve not come by because you’re still nursing a broken heart over your Lady Anne.” Lady Anne Adamson—or rather the former Lady Anne Adamson. Recently married to the roguish Earl of Stanhope, she’d now be referred to as the Countess of Stanhope in polite Society. The young lady also happened to be the woman he’d set his sights upon as his future duchess.

“A broken heart?” he scoffed. “I don’t have a broken heart.” He’d held the young lady in high regard. He found her to be a forthright woman who’d have him for more than his title, but there had been no love there. Daisy gave him a pointed look. “Regardless, what do you know of Lady Anne?”

“Come, Auric,” she scoffed. “Just because I made my Come Out years ago and disappeared from your life doesn’t mean I’ve not always worried after your happiness.” At her directness, a twinge of guilt struck him. She’d always been a far better friend to him than he’d deserved. Daisy’s initial entry into Society had been cut short by the untimely death of her father. She and her mother had retreated into mourning and had only reemerged this year.