Page 67 of Distracting the Duke

“Once you get to know him. I daresay some might find him a little…unnerving.”

“He’s very intense, isn’t he?” exclaimed Ellie. “Especially with that penetrating look of his.”

“I must say,” said Philip, laying his spoon down with a clatter, “I think it a rum do to be talking about the fellow in this way when we’re sitting at his table, eating the best his cook has to offer, and sampling the best wines in his cellar. No offense, Lord Snettisham.”

Clara gaped at her brother. Why was he now so ready to sing Marcus’s praises?

She narrowed her eyes at him. Something had definitely happened.

“Philip,” she said sweetly, “when dinner is over, will you take a stroll with me down to the lake? I feel the need for some fresh air.”

“I’m sure someone else could accompany you. I was planning on having a postprandial cigar.”

“Have it outside,” she said, checking the urge to snap at him. “I’m sure Lord Snettisham can spare you for half an hour, can’t you, my lord?”

Snettisham scanned her face, then nodded. “Shan’t take a cigar at all,” he said. “I’ll be with the ladies in the music room. There’s a top-notch pianoforte in there, if anyone wants to play.”

Dinner seemed interminable, but eventually Clara found herself strolling with her brother across the sloping lawns toward the lake. Dusk had already started removing color from the day, and the water birds were rustling in their nests or settling down in the long grasses for their evening rest. A few bats flickered across the sky, and occasionally the shadowy shape of an owl glided overhead, blanking out the stars.

“We’d best not be too long,” Philip said, dragging on his cigar. “It’s just the hour for the midges to be swarming.”

“This won’t take long,” she said, taking his arm. “Not if you’re honest with me.”

He gave her a sideways look. “I’m to be interrogated, am I? Do you really need to know everything, Clara? Can’t you just let things be sometimes, without needing to question them?”

“Not this time. People are behaving oddly, which unsettles me. The duke has abandoned us at short notice, and you’re paying him compliments, even though he’s not here to hear them. Tell me, are you so influenced by the delights of Wroxham?”

“You know very well the reason for his departure,” Philip shot back.

“I do?”

“He told me about his proposal and how very close you came to an outright refusal.”

Surprise suffused her that Marcus had confided in her brother. “I thought you wanted him to marry Ellie,” she said cautiously.

“Not anymore. He would suit you much better.”

“Not even if Ellie is starting to have some feelings for him?”

“Is she?” he asked, astonished.

“I can’t marry him if she likes him.”

“Why not?” Philip took a deep drag on his cigar and puffed out a smoke ring. “I say, Clara, look at that!”

The man was completely useless.

“Philip, I need you to pay attention. I have no wish to marry again.” He didn’t need to know the reasons why.

Her brother removed the cigar from his lips and knocked a tail of ash from the end of it. He said slowly, “Clara, it’s time you forgot about Simon. And Kate. Well, not about her or Georgie, because I hope one day you’ll be reconciled, but about what happened. It will never happen to you again.”

She opened her mouth to ask how he could possibly know that, but he waved a hand at her.

“No, let me finish. I have every reason to think the duke is quite genuine in his feelings toward you and in his offer. You’d be a fool not to accept. The Duchess of Ulvercombe will be very highly placed in Society. You won’t have to hide away anymore, you won’t have to worry about money, you can advance your family—”

“That’s rather selfish, isn’t it?” she asked.

He waved the cigar. “I don’t want to put any pressure on you. My faith in the duke is quite genuine. He has given me ample reason to trust him. Are you sure you don’t like him? Not even a little?”