Page 31 of The Duke’s Suspicion

Her fork clattered onto her plate as she reached down to clamp one hand tightly around the other, both around her journal, determined to keep herself from indulging her curiosity.

She saw his gaze dart to the movement of her hands, then back to her face. “It would seem botanists enjoy employing metaphor,” he said, rather wryly. “Very well. A trot is steady, efficient…”

“For an experienced rider, yes.” She nodded, pressing her hands so firmly into her lap that she had to sit up straighter. “But the novice is likely to be jolted and jarred, fearful of being thrown, exhausted after a quarter of an hour—to say nothing of a day.” His silence left a void that her words rushed to fill. “Regrettably, despite a lifetime of experience, I have not entirely mastered the pace and sometimes find myself in danger of being unseated.”

He was watching her warily, and why not? She sounded like a madwoman. Oh, God. Why had she ventured to explain to him what no one had ever understood?

“But when I’m focused on certain tasks,” she continued, forcing herself to look away from him, “on plants, particularly—the intricacies of a flower, the pattern of a leaf—the pace changes.”

“To a walk?”

Did he ask out of genuine curiosity? Or was his question mocking? She dared not look at him to determine which. “No. More like a…a canter, I’d say,” she said, plowing ahead with the analogy. “Deceptively smooth. Dangerously fast. Too easy to find yourself miles from where you started and totally lost.”

“Hence a dozen hours spent in the conservatory without realizing how much time had gone by,” he said after a moment. She let her chin wobble and hoped it would pass for a nod. After another long silence, he spoke again. “You should eat.” Not, for once, a command. But even if it had been, she would have complied, for it was abundantly clear she needed something to occupy both her mouth and her hands.

To the sound of little more than the chink of utensils against stoneware, she finished the pie, returned to the plateful of chicken, herb pudding, and creamed turnips, even sampled the aspic. Despite her current unease, after passing the better part of the day without food, her appetite was voracious.

Though she tried to pay no attention to Tristan, she knew when he cut a piece of pie for himself, knew too that he prodded it with his fork, never raising a bite to his lips.

“Sometimes I fear…” he began after a long silence. “That is, I wonder… Did you see any evidence that my sister suffers from a similar…disorder in her thinking?”

If she had not already been sitting stiffly, his words would have drawn her upright. “I do not suffer, Your Grace, except under the judgments of others. And if your sister—”

“Forgive me. I chose my words poorly.” Pushing aside his plate, he turned toward her, and his expression was grave, filled with something she had never expected to see written on his face. Uncertainty. A weak smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “As I seem prone to do of late. I only meant—”

She set down her fork but kept her fingers on its handle, rather than laying them on his arm as she was sorely tempted to do. “I understand. The truth of the matter is, Your Grace, I do not know Lady Viviane well enough to answer. She gives every indication of being a clever girl, an eager pupil—”

“Too clever for her own good, according to some.”

The very words Miss Chatham had spoken. In her mind’s eye, Erica could see the woman’s disapproving posture. Did he know? “Too clever for her governess, at any rate,” she agreed. “Perhaps another—?” But the words were hardly out of her mouth before his broad shoulders drooped in defeat, and she understood then that Miss Chatham was only the latest in a long line of failed teachers. “You must not give up hope,” she tried to reassure him. “The right person is out there. You must find someone who understands—”

“What it’s like to have one’s mind always flitting from one subject to the next?” There was a note of skepticism in his voice, as if he struggled to imagine anything so thoroughly out of his control.

“I daresay we’re not such rare specimens.” She spoke before she thought, as she too often did. Now he was studying her intently, with an eagerness in his expression that presaged some brilliant idea. A proposal—though not of marriage. His lips parted, and instinctively she shook her head before he could speak. “Or perhaps not. One such as I would make a poor teacher indeed. Your sister requires a governess who is compassionate, but who can also model proper, ladylike behavior.”

Ladylike behavior. The words acted like charm, breaking the momentary spell that had held him. He drew back slightly. “Yes. Yes, of course. I have worried that if she continues in this course, her prospects may be altered…”

“They may well be, Your Grace. But not necessarily for the worse.” The prickliness had returned to her voice. “She is, after all, the daughter of a duke.”

A whisper of breath escaped his lips, neither a sigh nor a laugh. “She is that.”

He rose and lifted the kettle from the hob, where it had been murmuring merrily, not quite to the point of whistling.

“Tea?” she asked, hopeful.

He poured steaming water into a basin, then stepped back to the table to gather the remains of the food and return it to the cupboard. “I’m afraid not—not without waking Mrs. Dean, that is,” he added with a smile. “She guards the tea chest more stringently than the silver.”

“Then what—?”

But she did not need to finish her question. He had shrugged out of his coat and was rolling up lace-edged sleeves in a manner that would surely give his valet heart palpitations; the view of his corded forearms was having a similar effect on her.

“As I said,” he told her, flicking a dollop of soap into the basin, “the army has taught me resourcefulness.”

“Surely you must have a servant? Even…abroad,” she added, avoiding any mention of where, sensing his discomfort at her earlier mention of France.

“Not always.”

He held out his hand for her empty plate, but she rose and brought it to him, snatching a towel from the drying rack near the fire as she passed. She had little familiarity or felicity with domestic tasks, but at least she was wearing an apron.