Page 3 of The Feared Duke’s Found Family

Lysander chuckled, a low, rough sound that surprised even himself. “My apologies, Lady Fanny. But the interaction was far too amusing to interrupt.”

“Amusing?” She folded her arms, her card crumpled slightly in her right fist.

“Extremely.” Lysander looked down at the silk card in her hand, then shifted his posture, bringing one broad shoulder forward. He extended his gloved right hand toward her, palm open, his fingers steady. “However, since my name is officially recorded on your card, it would be terribly uncivilized of me to leave it unfulfilled. May I have the honor of this waltz?”

Lady Fanny looked at his open hand. She looked up at his face, her amber eyes scanning his features—the firm line of his mouth, the sharp angle of his jaw, the slight glint of lingering amusement in his gray eyes.

A faint, slow smile spread across her face.

She stepped closer to him. She lifted her hand, her soft glove brushing his knuckles, her silk skirts sweeping against his boots as though she were about to let him guide her toward the center of the polished floor. Her scent, light, like lavender and sweet rain, drifted up between them.

Lysander’s fingers began to close around hers.

“No, thank you, Your Grace.”

Fanny pulled her hand back smoothly, picked up her skirts with a crisp, elegant snap of her wrists, and turned on her heel. She walked away into the crowd, her chin held high, her spine straight, leaving him standing alone in the middle of the aisle.

Lysander remained frozen, his hand still outstretched in midair. He slowly lowered his arm, his fingers curling into a loose fist at his side. A faint, genuine smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as he watched her light brown hair disappear into the sea of silk and velvet near the refreshment tables.

How very amusing.

He turned his back on the dance floor, his face hardening as his smile vanished. He had not come to Greystone Manor to be entertained by spirited spinsters with quick tongues. He was here to find a mother for his three children, a sensible, practical woman to restore order to Hilgrove Manor.

He drew a long breath, squared his broad shoulders, and began to scan the room once more.

I will not leave this party until I secure a duchess.

Two

Fanny kept her chin level with the floorboards as she glided past the ballroom’s silk-draped pillars. Her fingers clutched the ivory edge of her dancing card so tightly that the thin cardstock bowed in her palm.

She didn’t glance back, but she could hear the whispers.

“…saw her walk away…”

“…a spinster of three-and-twenty…”

“…what could she possibly have said to annoy the Duke of Hilgrove…”

Fanny’s cheeks burned, a prickle of heat crawling up from her neckline to the roots of her hair. She smoothed her skirt with her free hand, taking short, deliberate steps toward the safety of a side alcove where the shadows were deeper, and the punch bowl offered a shield.

“Fanny!”

A soft rustle of silk signaled Dorothy Gale’s approach. The blonde squeezed past a cluster of matrons, her brown eyes wide as she caught Fanny’s wrist, tugging her two inches deeper into the alcove.

“What in high heaven was that?” Dorothy whispered, her fan fluttering in frantic circles near her throat. “You were standing with the Duke of Hilgrove. You were speaking to him! And then you left him stranded in the middle of the aisle!”

Fanny let out a small, ragged breath, her shoulders dropping half an inch now that the crowd’s line of sight was blocked. She tapped her card against her thigh. “The man behaves nothing like a duke.”

“But he is a duke,” Dorothy pointed out reasonably.

“He is a bear in a tailored coat,” Fanny snapped, her amber eyes flashing as she adjusted the lace trimming her wrist. “He’s here simply to toy with the ladies in the room. He signed no cards, yet allowed me to believe I was some desperate, scheming trickster who had forged his name! He stood there, smirking, actually smirking, while I defended myself!”

Dorothy blinked. “He smiled?”

“He chuckled,” Fanny corrected bitterly, her thumb catching the silk tassel of her card. “He found my humiliation immensely entertaining. Some of us take the Duke Hunt seriously.” She lowered her voice, her throat tightening as she looked down at the floor. “Some of us actually wish for a home. A real family. Children of our own. Not a parlor game where a man can amuse himself at our expense because he has nothing better to do with his evening.”

Dorothy’s fan slowed, her expression softening into something cautious. She reached out, pressing her fingers against Fanny’s arm. “Fanny… even if he were here looking for a wife, what woman in her right mind would be brave enough to marry him after what happened?”