Loved by a Duke (The Heart of a Duke #4)(7)

He sketched a bow and started for the door.

“Auric?”

Her quietly spoken question brought him to a stop and he froze at the threshold. He cast a questioning glance back over his shoulder.

Daisy folded her hands, one gloved, the other devoid of that proper garment. He eyed her fingers a moment; long, exposed, graceful. How had he failed to note what magnificent hands she possessed? With a hard shake of his head, he concentrated on the lady’s words. “You needn’t feel an obligation to us. You’ve responsibilities. My mother and I, we know that.” A pressure tightened his chest. She held his gaze. “Lionel would have known that, too,” she assured him, unknowingly squeezing the vise all the more, making breathing difficult.

The polite and, at the very least, gentlemanly thing to do was assure Daisy that his visit was more than an obligatory call. But that would be a lie. His debt to this family was great. He managed a jerky nod and swept from the room, feeling the familiar relief at each departure from the Marchioness of Roxbury’s home awash in memories.

Auric strode down the long, carpeted corridors, past the oil canvas paintings of landscapes and bucolic, country scenes.

Except with the relief at having paid his requisite visit, there was guilt. A new niggling of guilt that didn’t have to do with his failures the night Lionel had been killed, and everything do with the sudden, staggering truth that Daisy Meadows was on her third Season, unwed, and…he shuddered, romantic.

Bloody hell. The girl had grown up and he wanted as little do with Daisy dreaming of a love match as he did with a scheming matchmaking mama with designs upon his title. The pressure was too great to not err where she was concerned.

He reached the foyer. The late Marquess of Roxbury’s devoted, white-haired butler stood in wait, Auric’s black cloak in his hands. “Your carriage awaits, Your Grace.” There was much to be said for a man who’d leave the employ of the man who inherited the title and remain on the more modest staff of the marchioness and her daughter.

“Thank you, Frederick,” he murmured to the servant he’d known since his boyhood.

The man inclined his head as Auric shrugged into his cloak and then Auric hesitated. As a duke he enlisted the help of very few. He didn’t go about making inquiries to servants, particularly other peoples’ servants, and yet, this was the butler who’d demonstrated discretion with his and Lionel’s every scheme through the years. A man who’d rejected the post of butler to the new Marquess of Roxbury following the other man’s death and remained loyal to Daisy and her mother. “Tell me, Frederick, is there…” He flicked an imaginary piece of lint from his sleeve. “Has a certain gentleman captured Lady Daisy’s attentions?”

“Beg pardon, Your Grace?”

“A gentleman.” He made a show of adjusting his cloak. “More particularly an unworthy gentleman you,” I, “would worry of where the lady is concerned?” A gentleman with dishonorable intentions, perhaps, or one of those bounders after her dowry, who’d take advantage of her whimsical hopes of love. He fisted his hands wanting to end the faceless, nameless, and still, as of now, fictional fiend.

Frederick lowered his voice. “Not an unworthy gentleman, Your Grace. No.”

Auric released a breath as the old servant rushed to pull open the door. Except as he strode down the handful of steps toward his waiting carriage, he glanced back at the closed door, a frown on his lips as the butler’s words registered through his earlier relief.

Not an unworthy gentleman… Not. No. Not. There is no gentleman who’s captured the lady’s affection.

That suggested there was, in fact, a gentleman. And Daisy, with her silly romantic sentiments required more of a careful eye. “Bloody hell,” he muttered as he climbed inside his carriage. He had an obligation to Lionel, and to Daisy, his friend’s sister.

Whether he wished it or not.





Chapter 2

Seated at the edge of Lady Harrison’s ballroom floor, Daisy fiddled with her skirts. Couples whirled past in an explosion of colorful satin gowns. She eyed the dancers longingly and tapped her slippers noiselessly to the one-two-three rhythm of the waltz.

…it doesn’t matter that you’re a horrid dancer. When you love something enough as you do, it will come. Now focus. One-two-three. One-two-three…

The gentle chiding words spoken long ago whispered around her memory so strongly she glanced about, almost expecting her brother to be there, staunch, supportive, and at her side as he’d always been. Alas, the delicate chairs alongside hers remained fittingly empty. The aching hole that would forever remain in her heart throbbed and as she rubbed at her chest. She searched for one particular gentleman whose reassuring presence always drove back the agony of missing Lionel. Alas, every other unwedded young lady waited in breathless anticipation for the Duke of Crawford’s rumored arrival as well. Except, with the rapidity in which he’d taken flight that afternoon, as though her townhouse was ablaze and he was bent on survival, Daisy was sure she was in fact, the last person he cared to see.

She sat back in her seat and sighed. For all the bothersome business of being invisible, there were certain benefits. She touched her gloved fingers to her bare neck as the silly thought that had taken root earlier that afternoon had since grown. The pendant. She required a necklace. Nay, not any necklace, but that whispered about heart worn by the Countess of Stanhope and the woman before her—the countess’ twin sister.