Page 96 of A Mother for the Blind Duke’s Orphans

Hector looked around until he spotted her shape. She stood across the room. He knew that was her before her voice rose warmly.

“Ah,” his friend said beside him. “Now it all makes sense.”

Hector was about to retort when Poppy and her sister approached him.

“Oh, Hector.” Poppy breathed, and just those two words gave him a sense of peace that this was the right decision.

He inclined his head as if he had done nothing remarkable. “It seemed a suitable way to conclude your sister’s visit.”

Julia laughed beside Poppy. “Suitable? You have hidden an entire ball from us.”

“Not an entire ball,” he said. “A modest one.”

“Only a duke would call this modest,” Leander observed.

Hector let the remark pass.

“This is my good friend, the Duke of Berkshire.” He introduced Jasper to the group without removing his gaze from Poppy.

Hector left them to speak as his mind spiraled out of control. Poppy looked breathtaking in the deep burgundy ballgown, with her curls half pinned and half let down. He wished then that he could see the color of her eyes again, just to complete the entire picture of her.

I should ask her to dance. She stopped close enough that her scent reached him clearly beneath the wax and flowers and warmed air of the ballroom. And Hector noticed the blush rise in her skin as he drank her in.

He gave her a faint, formal smile as he gestured toward the ballroom. “I hope it pleases you.”

“It does,” she said eagerly, and the simple sincerity of it reached him with more force than any practiced compliment. “Very much so.”

He nearly said something foolish then. Something about how he had wanted to see her happy, though seeing was the wrong word and wanting was worse. Fortunately, Jasper chose that moment to enter the conversation like a man stepping through an unlocked door.

“At last,” Jasper said. “Are you going to hide your duchess from me forever, or is this the night I am permitted an introduction?”

Hector turned toward him with no attempt to disguise his irritation. Jasper sounded amused already, which meant the evening was about to become less manageable.

Poppy shifted beside him. “Your Grace, it is nice to meet my husband’s good friend.”

“Only friend. And you must be the reason Sterling has become even more impossible to visit than usual.” Jasper bowed over her hand with an ease that had undone far more guarded women than Poppy. “Your Grace, I am devastated to discover that every rumor understated you.”

Poppy laughed, not coquettishly, but with startled pleasure. “That is a very practiced compliment.”

“Only because I have spent years waiting to use it on someone deserving.”

“Berkshire,” Hector warned.

Jasper straightened. “There he is.”

Julia, who had remained nearby with obvious interest, made no attempt to rescue anyone.

“I would have come sooner,” Jasper said, “but Sterling guards his treasures with a dragon’s disposition.”

“I do not guard her,” Hector said defensively.

“No? Then why are you right beside my elbow like a jealous husband?”

The words landed lightly, and Poppy made a small sound of laughter. Hector felt the back of his neck tighten.

“I am standing in my own ballroom; it is not my fault that you take up so much space beside me,” he said.

“Are you saying that I am rotund?” Jasper replied, feigning surprise. “I simply wanted to greet Her Grace and admire her.”