Page 5 of How Not to Marry a Duke

Tonight, he lay awake in his townhouse and counted the cracks in his bedroom ceiling until dawn, trying very hard not to think about bare feet in wet grass and the sound of her laughter.

Seventeen cracks.

He counted them three times, just to be certain.

Chapter Two

The Summons

Florinda had known, from the precise quality of the summons, that something dreadful was about to occur.

Not "Her Majesty requests your presence at tea." Not "The Queen wondered if you might join her in the garden." No—this had been delivered by a footman whose face held the carefully neutral expression of a man who had been instructed to convey very bad news and was attempting to pretend otherwise.

"Her Majesty requires your attendance in the blue drawing room. Immediately."

Requires. Immediately.

The language of impending doom, dressed in royal courtesy.

Florinda had taken the time to change her dress, re-pin her hair, and locate her shoes—all acts of petty rebellion that she suspected would go entirely unnoticed. Her hair, at least, was now properly confined in a respectable arrangement that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the wild tumble it had achieved during the pirate incident.

The pirate incident. Even in the privacy of her own mind, the words made her wince.

She had not meant to be discovered. The children had needed exercise, the governess had been indisposed, and Florinda had made the regrettable decision that the east garden was sufficiently private for a brief game of pirates-and-sea-monsters. She had not anticipated the King of England rounding the corner with a guest in tow.

She had particularly not anticipated that the guest would be the Duke of Carthedge.

Frederick.

Florinda's face grew warm at the memory, which was irritating. She was six and twenty years old. She had survived one public humiliation at the hands of a fortune-hunting poet and emerged with her dignity largely intact. She was not going to be undone by the recollection of the Duke of Carthedge observing her stockings.

Even if they had been her good stockings.

Even if he had been staring at her with an expression she could not quite decipher—something between horror and fascination, as though she were a particularly exotic species of insect he had not expected to encounter on a garden lawn.

She had pretended not to notice. She was very good at pretending not to notice things.

The blue drawing room was empty when Florinda arrived, which gave her precisely three minutes to compose her features into an expression of serene dignity before Ella swept through the door.

The Queen of England looked, Florinda observed, as though she had been crying.

This was alarming. Ella did not cry. Ella managed crises with the same brisk efficiency she had once applied to managing their father's chaotic household. Ella fixed problems; she did not weep over them.

"Florinda." Ella's voice held a strange, tight quality. "Please sit down."

"If you are about to tell me that someone has died, I should prefer to receive the news standing."

"No one has died." Ella clasped her hands before her, a gesture Florinda recognised from their childhood—the pose she adopted when delivering unpleasant news about governesses being dismissed or holidays being cancelled. "But I am afraid—that is, Edward has decided⁠—"

She stopped. Took a breath. Started again.

"His Majesty believes you might enjoy the country air."

Florinda felt the words settle into her chest like stones dropping into still water.

"How thoughtful," she heard herself say. "The country air is so much easier to manage than opinions."

"Florinda—"