Page 55

It absolutely did not.

And then, fortunately, calls were made.

“What are your thoughts, my lady?” That question came unexpectedly from her right side, in a voice raised slightly, and she jumped, looking over to the gentleman.

For one horrifying moment, she believed the duke had heard her silent thoughts, and froze.

His Grace nudged his chin at the ring, and she followed his stare, and relief swept through her.

“It is… fine enough.”

“Fine enough,” Landon, beside the duke, repeated. “When one is winning, a feat Waters and myself have little experience with.” He winked at Marcia and returned his attention to the ring.

The duke’s attention remained on Marcia. “I take it you prefer other pastimes.”

Unlike the exchange loaded with innuendos between Andrew and his ample wager collector, there was an actual sincerity to the duke’s question, and she relaxed some.

“I confess my other interests extend to rapiers and reading.”

“Rapiers and reading,” he repeated and grinned. “I confess you have me intrigued as to your identity, my lady.”

“I am—”

“She is no one.” Andrew’s sharp tones cut across her response, and she frowned. “She is no one.”

At some point, his companion had taken herself off, and Andrew had turned his attention to Marcia’s exchange with the duke.

His eyes no longer glittered with the same teasing light that had been there during his back-and-forth with Lucinda. His mouth had gone harder.

Her annoyance stirred. How dare he be boorish to her when he should so easily charm that woman?

Presenting him with a dismissive shoulder, she turned her focus back on the duke.

“You may call me—”

“Do. Not.” Andrew gritted out each of those syllables.

“Lady Dorothy.”

“Lady Dorothy.” The duke and Andrew both repeated the middle name she’d handed them.

She inclined her head.

The duke reached down and unexpectedly caught her fingers in his larger palm. Slowly, he raised her knuckles to his mouth and placed an even slower kiss upon them. “A pleasure, Lady Dorothy.”

Instead of releasing her after that respectful drop of his lips, he lingered, his fingers stroking the top of her hand. It was the deliberate stroke of a gentleman confident in his familiarity with a woman and in his ability to elicit a desirous response, and yet…

Marcia cocked her head.

The Duke of Rothesby.

As well as she knew Andrew was as little as she knew the man next to her, a man whom she knew only for the words that had been written about him in the newspapers. He was one of the rogues Society frequently whispered of.

She’d been so very certain that Andrew’s touch and whispers earned the dizzying responses they invariably did because he was a rogue, and all ladies responded to all rogues in like ways.

Only with Rothesby, there came none of those shivers she knew when Andrew touched her in a similar manner.

She knew neither why nor what to make of that difference. Because she’d been certain her awareness of Andrew had been merely a product of the fact that he was a rogue. But Rothesby was, too, and she didn’t respond the same way to him.