Page 10 of A Deviant Spinster for the Duke (The Gentlemen’s Club #3)

CHAPTER TEN

D uncan should not have mentioned Louisa.

He still did not know why he had, for her escape from cruelty was a private story— her story. One he had never told a soul, not even his dearest friends, lest it somehow end up in the scandal sheets. All who had known about it were dead and gone, aside from him and Louisa herself.

I must drink less brandy.

“You will forgive me if I imbibe,” he said bluntly. “For this to be a success, we must emulate the conditions as best we can.”

Valeria turned to look at him. “Conditions of what?”

“Balls, parties, gatherings, of course,” he replied, sipping as she tugged on the knotted ribbon at her throat, letting her cloak slide from her shoulders. He would have offered to help, but suspected she would have refused immediately.

She draped the cloak on the arm of his chair. “Whatever for? I came here for a list, nothing else.”

“And as I told you yesterday, a list will do you no good.” He set his drink down. “An old clock will not work unless all the pieces are moving in harmony.”

Her eyes widened in offense. “I am an old clock?”

“A poor choice of metaphor.” He smiled. “That does not happen to me often. Still, the point remains—you have issues that warrant addressing, or you shall never chime sweetly enough to attract a husband.”

She moved to his armchair and perched on the edge of it. “Consider me suitably insulted, but, nevertheless, listening…”

“First, we must address your biggest failing,” he said, walking toward her until he was practically towering over her. He waited until she peered up at him before he added, “How unapproachable you are.”

Her eyes flared with anger, lips pouting. “I am plenty approachable, thank you very much.”

She said it with such sincerity, such confidence, and such fury, that he could not bear it. Laughter bubbled up the back of his throat and spilled out in a hearty rumble, his hand pressed to his abdomen as the sensation grew and grew, becoming an uncontrollable roar of amusement.

Crouching down, his shoulders shaking, he braced his hand against the floor, laughing harder than he had laughed in years. Every time he thought he was done, he pictured her face again—so frosty yet so filled with self-assurance that she was approachable—and it made him chuckle all over again.

“I do not see what is so terribly funny,” she muttered, but it lacked the barbs of earlier.

Indeed, if he was not mistaken, he heard a note of amusement in her voice.

Peeking up, he caught the tail end of a smirk that she hurried to hide behind her hand.

“Yes, I remember you saying you were a delight with your friends,” he remarked, his laughter subsiding. “I should clarify—you are not in the least bit approachable to gentlemen.”

Her mouth opened to protest, but she closed it again. A moment later, she nodded. “No, I suppose I am not.”

“Are you ready to tell me why that might be?” He recalled her speaking of having her heart broken by all men. It had intrigued him then, and it continued to do so.

He sank onto his knees, figuring she might be more comfortable if they were at a similar height. There, he gazed at her, waiting patiently, watching a carousel of doubt and feeling pass across her face.

She really was exceptionally beautiful.

“I thought entering society would open up an entirely new world for me,” she explained, after a while. “I viewed the notion of balls and parties as… forums, where I might learn and listen and be listened to in return. A place for argument, education, and exchanges of ideas and opinions. No one told me that what I had to say was not important, that no one would care.”

He frowned, troubled by her words. In his one-and-thirty years, he had known many women, collecting their stories and thoughts and wit and lively characters like treasured ornaments. He would hear a joke and remember someone, or see a herb in the garden and recall one woman telling him of its benefits, or read a book because a fleeting paramour had waxed poetic about it.

But that is on the periphery of society, he reminded himself. My experience, their experience—it is not the status quo.

“Then, you have been meeting fools,” he said, meaning it.

There was nothing so enlightening in this world as hearing the dreams and hopes and passions of women. In many ways, being in their company had made him a better man—a more sympathetic one, at least.

He thought of Louisa again, who might have been his sister-in-law if circumstances had been different. A woman so full of opinions and friendly argument and humor that, even now, he missed the noise of her in Thornhill Grange. She was never afraid to tease and laugh boldly, and hoped that, wherever she was, she was still causing that glorious kind of trouble. Valeria would have liked her very much; he was sure of that.

“Up on your feet,” he instructed, holding out his hands to her.

She neglected to take them and remained seated.

“Very well, stay there,” he said, rising up. “We can pretend that you are sitting at a table in a ballroom, minding your own business, when you are approached…”

He walked in a small circle and came back toward her, sauntering a little, acting like an eager but inexperienced gentleman might.

“My goodness, what a rare bird—I simply must know who you are!” he cried, resting one hand on the armrest, leaning in at a diagonal.

Valeria raised an eyebrow. “Why must you? Are you in need of something else to cage in your menagerie? I should warn you; I peck.”

“Try again!” he demanded, turning a circle and coming back to the same position. “My goodness, what a beauty you are—I simply must know who you are!”

She puffed out a breath that blew a lock of auburn hair out of her face. “This is stupid.”

“This is how you learn,” he replied with a grin. “The more stupid you feel now, the less awkward you will feel when it happens in the real world. This is war, Valeria, and we are in training.”

“Come now, it is hardly war.”

He clicked his tongue. “Au contraire. You are about to charge into battle for the victory of holy matrimony, and you are fighting against seven years of younger women. You have no allies. All are enemies. What is that if not warfare?” He cleared his throat. “I could not help but stop by your table, miss, for I was halted by your beauty—tell me, I must know; who are you?”

She rolled her eyes and straightened up. “Miss Valeria Maxwell.”

“And…?” he prompted.

“And what? That is who I am. I answered your question.”

“Terrible. The worst.” He grabbed her hands and hoisted her out of the chair, ushering her a short distance away. “I will be you. You be a gentleman and let me show you how it is done.”

She gaped at him. “You cannot be serious.”

“I am entirely serious, for you are more hopeless than I feared,” he replied, flashing a wink.

Arranging himself into a more feminine posture, his legs crossed, leaning ever-so daintily on the armrest, batting his eyelashes at Valeria until he caught a smile cracking across her face, he waited.

I would see you smile more, Miss Maxwell. I would hear you laugh. Not as part of his lessons, but for himself.

Grimacing and pausing for a breath, Valeria approached with the kind of swagger that Duncan had seen all too often. Indeed, if she did not succeed in marriage, perhaps she could be a gifted thespian instead.

“I had no choice but to introduce myself,” Valeria said in her deepest voice. “I could not walk by without doing so, seeing your beauty.”

She smothered a laugh as Duncan fluttered his surprisingly long eyelashes at her and clasped a hand to his chest. He turned his head to look behind him, returning his gaze to Valeria’s with an undeniable smolder in those dark blue pools.

“You cannot possibly be talking to me,” he replied, hiding a smile behind his hand. “Ah, I see what has happened—you must have caught your reflection in the window.”

Valeria frowned, doubting that such a remark would ever work. “What is your name?”

“A touch bold, do you not think?” Duncan answered, pretending to be scandalized. “I do not make a habit of giving my name to strangers, and I do not know you at all.”

Her frown deepened, for she was quite certain that if she said that, it would be enough to scare a man away. Yet, from him, it sounded… friendlier. A tease, rather than a telling off. A balancing act that she lacked the skill to execute.

“Forgive me.” Valeria took a breath, glancing around the room for inspiration. “I am… Duncan Fireplace, Earl of… Parquet.”

He snorted, that joyful laughter bubbling up again. His hand clamped over his mouth to try and stop it, and Valeria almost reached out to draw that hand away. She wanted to hear him laugh like that again, for though he was never without a smirk on his face and a rumbling chuckle in his throat, the hearty sound of his truest laughter was infectious.

“Well, Lord Parquet,” Duncan croaked, banging on his broad chest, “tell me a secret and I shall tell you my name.”

Valeria blinked. “A secret?”

“I think it a fair exchange, if we are to be acquainted,” he replied, recovering from his laughing fit.

Rubbing the back of her neck in the hopes of conjuring a secret into her mind, she faltered. Of course, there were big secrets she could tell, but they were not things she wanted Duncan to hear. As for smaller secrets, she did not know where to begin.

“I… Well, I… nibble the sides off jam tarts before I eat the rest,” she blurted out, deciding once and for all that she loathed this exercise. How was any of this supposed to help her?

Duncan feigned a gasp. “So do I!” He smiled slyly at her. “As a fellow nibbler of jam tarts, it is my pleasure to make your acquaintance, my lord.” He put out his hand. “I am Miss Valeria Armchair.”

The laugh was out of her mouth before she could stop it, jumping into the space between them like her tart secret. His eyebrow lifted, a different kind of smile curving his mouth. A surprised smile.

“This is… so very silly,” she murmured, thrown by his disarming grin.

He shook his head. “Not at all. You did well. And if you can smile and laugh like that at the next ball you attend, you will be married just in time.”

“In time for what?”

He stood up and took her by the hands, pausing there for a flustering moment. “To avoid summer parties and picnics. One cannot concentrate on attracting a spouse when one is being bitten by ants and harassed by flies and wasps.”

He moved her like they were in the midst of a dance, pulling her gently, guiding her into the chair he had just vacated. “Although, I am intrigued to see you eat a jam tart.” He released her. “Now, let us try again.”

Valeria folded her hands into her lap, somewhat breathless. She could not understand how someone possessed such casual authority, Duncan entirely in command of the situation without making it feel like he was commanding her . Nor could she understand why she did not want to leave and end the embarrassment there and then.

Because he is joining me in my discomfort, she realized with no small degree of shock. He is embarrassing himself to alleviate mine.

As she watched him approach, her heart thudded strangely; imagining, for a fleeting moment, what it would feel like if he actually approached her at a ball.

I think I would be in a great deal of trouble…