Page 37 of An Offer By the Beastly Duke

Violet glanced down at Nicholas. “Have you been to the sweet shop this week, Lord Romwich?”

He kept his expression politely neutral, though his eyes sparked. “I haven’t had the pleasure.”

Violet looked at Penelope, eyebrows raised in a silent challenge.

Nicholas turned to his mother. He didn’t ask; he simply stood there, his barely contained hope so carefully managed it was almost heart-breaking.

“Go,” Penelope said, waving a hand.

He was gone before the word had finished, his boots echoing on the cobbles. Violet followed at a more dignified pace, casting one last, speaking glance over her shoulder.

Amelia appeared at Penelope’s elbow, her presence a calm anchor. “Bookshop?”

The shop was narrow and cool, its shelves built deep into the old timbered walls. It smelled of vanilla, old leather, and dust. The volumes were stacked two and three deep with the accumulative logic of a place where books arrived faster than they could be shelved. Penelope moved along the nearest aisle without any aim, her fingers skimming the spines.

“You’re restless,” Amelia said from the far end of the row.

“I am perfectly well,” Penelope answered curtly.

“You’ve been looking at the same shelf for two full minutes without reading a single title. Your thumb is pressing into that spine quite hard.”

Penelope looked down at her hand. She relaxed her grip. “I have things on my mind, Aunt Amelia.”

“I do not doubt it.” A pause, the soft crackle of a page being turned. “You know you can tell your old aunt anything. I’m not as quick with opinions as Violet, but I am a very good vault for secrets.”

Penelope’s mouth curved. “You are too young to be such a wise aunt.”

“I said, old aunt,” Amelia replied.

“I hardly believe that.”

The voice was new. Rich, resonant, and laced with an easy, unforced charm.

They both turned.

A man stood just inside the door, which had opened and closed with a silence that suggested a certain grace. He was perhaps thirty, well-made and relaxed, wearing a dark coat that fit him. His face was open and handsome, his eyes crinkling with a genuine, infectious amusement.

He held up a book.

“I apologize entirely for eavesdropping. I only caught the last of it, but I feel very strongly that the word ‘old’ should never be applied to either of you. I couldn’t simply walk past such a tragedy without intervening.”

He stepped forward, bowing with natural ease. He took Penelope’s hand and kissed it with practiced gallantry. When he took Amelia’s, he didn’t release it immediately. He looked at her directly, his gaze steady and bright.

“Benedict, Marquess of Hayward,” he said. “Completely at your service and not remotely ashamed of my curiosity.”

Amelia’s cheeks went pink. Not a polite, social blush, but a deep, involuntary crimson. She looked caught off guard in a way Penelope had never seen.

“Lord Hayward,” Amelia said, her voice a little breathless. “That is a very good book you’re holding. A rare edition.”

He turned the book over as if seeing it for the first time. “You know it?”

“I have my own copy. Most people find the first chapter tedious, but the second is far better than anyone gives it credit for. It’s the heart of the whole argument.”

Hayward’s face opened into a grin, unguarded and real. “The second chapter! Yes! Exactly right. Nobody ever notices that. They get stuck in the weeds of the introduction.”

He looked briefly at Penelope, warm and inclusive, then back at Amelia as if she were the most interesting discovery he had made in a decade. “How long are you in the area?”

“All season,” Amelia said, regaining some of her composure, though the color in her cheeks remained.