Page 34 of The Lady Knows Best

She hadn’t expected his answer about the quills and her writing. Certainly hadn’t anticipated his evident intention of flirting with her—though of course that was how a man like Deveraux would think of courtship.

But most unlooked for of all had been her reaction. Her awareness of his attention, the way it made her pulse leap and her blood rush to places it shouldn’t.

She had long since decided that the fact she found him attractive was nothing more than that—a fact. Nothing that required any alteration in her behavior. Just as a sunny day, though beautiful, did not require a person to go outside and tip her face to the sky. A lady could admire its golden warmth through the window and then go on about her tasks without risking pink cheeks and freckles.

But when he sat so close, and looked so perfectly, impossibly handsome, and acted so attentive, it was almost more than she could do to walk away. She’d tried to remind herself it was an act, the courtship she’d demanded. But when no one else was around, it seemed almost real.

He’d been going to kiss her. Again.

And she’d been going to let him. Again.

Then the door had opened and she’d imagined, just for a moment, the scandal that would erupt if they were seen alone, under the arbor, in an embrace. It would confirm him as a rake in the eyes of society and give her the last details she needed for her essay.

It might also make it necessary for her to marry him after all.

Cami would insist, which meant Gabriel would agree with his wife—conveniently forgetting his own rakish past. Tristan, Erica’s husband, would look stern and say something about duty, and Erica would ignore all of it, but would not disagree with her husband either. Bell would express wide-eyed concern, while worrying not-so-secretly about what Daphne’s disgrace would do to her own chances. And if her brother Paris, who still thought of her as a child, ever caught wind of it . . .

She shivered at the thought.

“Are you chilled?” Lord Deveraux spoke low behind her, a teasing note in his voice.

Sweat prickled along Daphne’s spine and under her arms, but she couldn’t entirely blame the steamy air of the glasshouse for that either. With swift, discreet movements of her fingers, she unbuttoned the top button of her dark green spencer.

“What is all this, anyway?” he asked.

“Exotics, mostly. Specimens Erica brought back from her West Indian voyage.”

He gave a knowing nod as he inspected the nearest plants, though Daphne felt certain he couldn’t identify one from another.

“Just don’t . . . touch anything, all right?” she said. “They may look pretty and delicate, but some of them are deadly.”

A smile tugged at his mouth. “I’m familiar with the type. So why did you bring us in here?” He glanced once more around the glass-walled room. “Not much in the way of privacy.”

Had he been expecting her to take him to a place where he could kiss her senseless without anyone knowing?

What lay beyond the conservatory was vaguely distorted in places, by condensation or a rippled pane of glass, but on the whole, the view was clear enough. They could easily see and be seen. “These plants are what draw people to the Duchesses’ Garden Party—well, the sort of people who care about botany, anyway. In here, I can claim to be showing you some of my sister’s prize specimens, and it’s obvious we aren’t trying to hide anything. Whereas if we’d been spotted together in the shade beneath the arbor, people would have assumed . . .”

He tilted his head and his brows rose. “And would that be such a terrible thing? For people to assume? After all, we are to be wed.”

The word made her heart stutter. “They will tell themselves, and others, that you are merely desperate to win your bet,” she said, thinking of the conversation that morning over breakfast. “And that the poor, pathetic wallflower must be so desperate to get married, she’s willing to go along with it.”

“Well”—his nose wrinkled as he sniffed the purple and orange flower in front of him—“that doesn’t paint either of us in a flattering light, does it?” She reached out and touched his shoulder, to discourage him from leaning any closer to the plant. He glanced first at her hand and then up at her. “Though I suppose it’s no worse than the truth.”

Was he having second thoughts? Actually feeling some regret over the position he’d put her in?

No, she doubted Lord Deveraux was capable of that sort of reflection.

She had gotten herself into this mess, with a few poorly chosen words and a hasty solution.

He shrugged and stepped to the next table of plants. She dropped her hand to her side again. “I say, that’s a strange looking fellow. ‘Dionaea muscipula (Venus’s-flytrap). Carolina,’” he read slowly off the printed label, the Latin awkward on his tongue.

“The boys’ favorite. It eats bugs.”

“Eats?” he echoed, incredulous.

She picked up a nearby pencil and pointed to a pair of pink half-moon-shaped leaves, fringed with spikes. “An insect stumbles along, or is lured, perhaps by the color, and then—” At the slightest brush back and forth of the pencil tip, the leaves snapped shut like a mouth with teeth.

His eyes flared. “A carnivorous plant.” He shook his head in disbelief. “These New World species are a bit alarming. I think I prefer our English roses.”