Page 28 of If the Duke Demands

“Apologies,” she choked out as she fought back her giggles. “It’s just that you—well, you’re a duke, so I don’t have to make a good impression on you.”

He crooked a brow silently at that, letting her dig herself deeper. And at this rate, she’d be to China by nightfall.

“That’snotwhat I meant! I meant that Robert is more important than you.” Her hand flew up to her mouth in mortification as she realized what she’d just said. Apparently, she couldn’t talk to any of the Carlisle men without sounding like a goose. “Oh, I didn’t meanthat!”

With a stoic expression, he plucked one of the grapes from the plate and took a quick glance over her shoulder at the lawn and his family scattered along its length to make certain no one was paying them any attention. Then he sat up and held the grape to her lips. “Open,” he ordered.

She hesitated, suspicious at his sudden graciousness. Then she opened her mouth as he’d asked, and he popped the grape inside.

“That’s better,” he murmured as she ate the grape, unable to say anything more and dig herself even deeper. When she saw the twinkle of amusement in his eyes, she burst out into a new fit of laughter, nearly choking on the grape.

He grinned at her, one of the old smiles she remembered from when he was younger and carefree, before he became so serious. It was nice. Quite nice.

She quickly chewed and swallowed as the last of the laughter eased from her. “Sebastian, I am sorry, truly. I didn’t mean any of that the way it sounded.”

“Apology accepted.”

He reclined again, once more assuming a pose that only Sebastian could somehow make simultaneously casual and imperial. The perfect picture of a powerful gentleman at leisure.

“I suppose I should address you as Trent when we’re in London,” she considered, struck by how every inch of him declared him to be the duke he was, even while stretched across a picnic blanket.

His amusement faded. “Please don’t.”

“All right,” she agreed quietly, but in that fleeting moment, she sensed the weight of the title on his shoulders and knew how much he must appreciate the rare moments when he didn’t have to be a peer. Like now. When he could be just Sebastian. “But only when we’re alone, or I fear your mother will make me memorize more passages from Debrett’s because she doesn’t think I understand how peerages work.”

He looked at her in disbelief. “Has she?”

Miranda sighed wearily as she nodded and reached for a sugared orange slice from the fruit plate. “She means well, I know. She thinks that knowing who everyone is will keep me from embarrassing myself by saying the wrong thing.” Not meeting his gaze, she stared down at the orange, her fingertips idly brushing off the sugar as she commented softly, “I’m not, you know.”

“What’s that?” he asked gently.

“Trouble.”

She didn’t have to look at him to know that he’d stiffened. She could feel it, so aware had she become of him since their encounter the night of the masquerade. “So you don’t have to worry that I’ll do anything scandalous this season and cause embarrassment for you. At least not on purpose.” She smiled faintly at the orange slice. “But trouble does seem to find me, doesn’t it?”

When he didn’t say anything, his silence confirming her suspicions, she lifted her eyes and met his as he looked at her solemnly.

“Perhaps I used to be like that,” she confided, “before I took over running the orphanage, but I’m not anymore.” Just as she was beginning to doubt that Robert might ever see her for who she was, she was also beginning to doubt the same in Sebastian, no matter that she’d now been in London for two weeks and had managed so far to avoid getting herself into any sticky spots. “But you know me from when I was just a child, so you know all the silly things I did before I grew up. I’m ten years younger than you, remember, five for Robert and four for Quinn…You were all so much older than me, and whenever I visited Chestnut Hill—”

“Which was all the time,” he interrupted with the start of a smile.

She smiled back, she couldn’t help it. “Yes, I suppose.” She took a deep breath and turned her attention back to the orange slice. “By the time I grew up, you were gone—Eton, Oxford, London. But in your eyes, I never grew up, did I? To you, I’m still just the same awkward and annoying girl from next door that I’ve always been.”

She glanced up to catch him watching her, and from the guiltily thoughtful expression on his face, she knew she was right.

“I just want to help Auntie and Uncle, the villagers, your family…all the people I love. And sometimes that puts me in over my head.” Her fingers pulled idly at the orange slice, the same way Robert had worried at that blade of grass. “I couldn’t help my parents, you know. I was too young when they fell ill with fever. The physician wouldn’t even let me into the room to see them because he was afraid I’d catch it, too.”

She didn’t dare look at him now, afraid of what she might see on his face…disbelief, annoyance, pity. Oh, that would be the worst of all! Because she wasn’t telling him this to garner his pity; she simply wanted him to understand her. After all, if she couldn’t get Sebastian to see her as a competent, strong woman, how on earth would Robert?

“The housekeeper made me sit in a chair in the hallway outside their door, for hours and hours each day. Each day eventually became weeks…I couldn’t stand it. To be forced to sit still like that was bad enough, but to hear my parents inside their room only a few feet away, unable to go to them no matter how much I cried—” Her throat choked around the words.

“I’m sorry, Miranda,” he murmured gently. He reached out and rested his hand on her foot, and the physical connection soothed her. “I had no idea.”

“I’ve never told anyone before,” she whispered. What good would it have done? What good would there have been in pity? “I suppose I’ve been trying to make up for that ever since, to help everyone in any way I can.” She forced a smile despite the stinging in her eyes at the fuzzy memories she had of that terrible time. “Truly, I don’t go looking for trouble. It just seems to find me on its own.” She tore off an end of the orange slice and thoughtfully chewed it with a contemplative frown. “I think it follows me around, just waiting to pounce.”

At that, he laughed softly. The warm sound rumbled over her like a soft summer rain. “It doesn’t lie in wait to pounce on you,” he assured her, amusement rich in his deep voice.

“Oh?” she challenged lightly, lifting a brow. “Unlike apanther, then?”