Page 2 of Duke at First Sight (Love at First Sight #1)

Part II

“ T here is no instinct like that of the heart.” ~English poet Lord Byron

Annalise had dreamt of this day for years . A decade, almost. Ever since she was a young girl of ten, she had imagined what would happen when she met the Prince Charming of every fairytale she’d ever read and that had been read to her.

She had dreamt of what he would look like. What he would say. How he would act.

Thus far, the Duke of Tennyson was exceeding every single expectation.

First and foremost, he was handsome. Dashingly so, with dark, thick hair that swept low over his left brow and a matching shadow of whiskers across his strong jawline he’d not yet shaved. Admittedly his eyes weren’t blue, as she’d told Becca she was hoping for, but the dark mahogany flecked with shards of amber suited him quite well. He was also tall, rugged, and - her knees did a strange wobble when she thought of the word she would never dare say aloud - virile .

He did have a rather strange aversion to geese. But he’d fed them nonetheless in a display of kindness that had warmed her heart. There was gentleness as well, underneath a bit of gruff. No one was perfect , after all. Not even a prince. Or in this case, a duke. A title that honestly didn’t sway her one way or the other, but she knew it would please her father which was, in the grand scheme of things, quite important as she did love him despite the restrictions he’d placed upon her. All well-intentioned, to be sure. She knew the death of her mother had left him devastated and he’d done his best to keep his daughter from succumbing to a similar fate, be it preventing her from going to a ball (“the roads are too icy, what if the carriage crashes?”), or a dinner party (“what if you choke on the salmon?”), or a play (“the theater steps are perilous, what if you fall?”).

Those ‘what ifs’ had kept her secluded from her peers in a world of her own imagination with only books, the outdoors, and Becca to keep her curious mind busy. Some might have harbored resentment, even hate, but not Annalise. It simply was not in her nature. But that did not mean she hadn’t quietly spent most of her adult life yearning for something more. Yearning for something bigger. Yearning for a love that would take her away from her prison, for even a gilded cage was still a cage. And her father would be loath to release her from it if he did not approve of the man opening the door. He would also be aghast to learn she’d snuck away from her lady’s maid shortly after arriving at Hyde Park, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and as her twentieth birthday loomed, she was becoming increasingly desperate.

Desperate to escape.

Desperate to live a larger life.

Desperate to find true love.

“Your Grace… do you like poetry?” she asked, biting her lip in anticipation of his response. He had to love it. She just knew it. Why, with a name like-

“Poetry?” he repeated, looking at her oddly. “No, I cannot abide it.”

Her jaw dropped. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, positive.”

“But… but your name is Derrick Blake , the Duke of Tennyson .”

“And?” he said, appearing nonplussed.

“And those are poets! Wonderful, widely celebrated poets! Geniuses of their craft!”

Her perhaps-not-so-perfect-after-all prince shrugged. “Wouldn’t know. Never read them.”

“You’ve never read Tennyson,” she said faintly. “Do you like dancing?”

“Not particularly.”

“Animals?”

“They make me sneeze.”

“Horseback riding?”

Derrick’s brows drew together. “I was bucked off a pony when I was seven and broke my arm. Haven’t met a horse I trusted since. Is that goose staring at me in a threatening manner or is it just me?”

She glanced at Augustus whose beady black eyes were trained unblinkingly on the duke as he extended his long neck and gave a loud honk. “He probably senses that you’re not my true love,” she mumbled under her breath, disappointment curdling in her stomach like cream that had turned the day prior.

“Pardon?” Derrick queried politely, having gone very, very still.

“I said that he must sense you’re not my true love.”

“That’s what I thought you said.”

“Now I have to keep searching and I’ve already wasted an hour.” Belatedly recalling the manners Becca had drilled into her, Annalise dropped into a quick, perfunctory curtsy. “If you would excuse me, Your Grace, I must be on my way before my companion catches up. I’ve much to do and little time to do it in.”

She started to walk past him, angling her body to the side so that she could slip by without stepping off the path and soiling her dress, completely oblivious to the streaks of mud that were already there. She let out a gasp when Derrick’s arm shot out and caught her, his large hand curling possessively around her waist as he effectively halted in her in her tracks.

“Are you husband hunting, Lady Annalise?” he asked, those dark, dark eyes traveling slowly down her frame before settling on her face with a searing intensity that made her blush return tenfold.

“I…I suppose you could call it that.” By her count, there were five layers of clothing between the duke’s hand and her waist. His glove, her pelisse, gown, petticoat, and shift. How, then, did she feel his fingers like a hot brand against her skin? “I…I am looking for love. True love.”

“And you hope to find it in Hyde Park?”

“I thought it would be a good place to start.”

Derrick scratched his jaw. “Very well. I’ll help you.”

Annalise’s eyes widened. “You’ll… you’ll help me?”

“Yes.” His broad shoulder lifted in a negligent shrug. “It’s not as if I have anything better to do. What sort of chap are we seeking? Someone titled and wealthy, I presume.”

Did he realize that his arm was still wrapped around her ribcage and he was holding her far closer to his body than a man ought to have held a woman that was not his wife? Or was he so accustomed to physical intimacy that their position was immaterial to him? Regardless, she couldn’t possibly entertain his offer to accompany her on her search for a potential husband.

Could she?

“Title and wealth are not un important,” she acknowledged. “I should like to have children, and be able to provide for them without worry. But it is the quality of a man’s character that matters most.”

“What sort of qualities should this man have?”

“Well, he must be kind,” she said, repeating herself from earlier in the day. “Chivalrous.”

“Chivalrous?” Derrick’s brow lifted.

“Chivalrous,” she confirmed with a decisive nod. “A man that I can love but also one that I can admire.”

“So he must be handsome.”

“Yes. I mean no.” How red, she wondered, could a person’s cheeks turn before they caught fire? “I mean, I should like to find him, ah, attractive. But on the inside as well as the out.”

“I presume by your questions that he should also have an affinity for poetry, dancing, and animals.”

“That is my hope.”

“Excellent,” Derrick declared, finally lowering his arm and gesturing for her to proceed him down the path. “Then we’ll start by looking for a lord the exact opposite of me.”

***

Derrick was never taking his butler’s advice again.

Go out for a morning stroll, he’d said.

It will help clear your head , he’d said.

What Grieves had failed to mention was that the ‘morning stroll’ would turn into a husband-hunting venture with an impossibly naive blonde and three angry geese. If Annalise was truly looking for love, she’d have a better time finding a needle in a haystack. And if one of his friends went looking for him, this was the last place in London they’d ever search.

The Debaucherous Duke wandering through Hyde Park in the early afternoon without a drop of drink or a card game in sight? They’d laugh so hard they’d split their trousers wide open. But Derrick wasn’t laughing. For some inexplicable reason, he was taking his quest with Annalise quite seriously.

One might say almost too seriously.

“What about that gentleman?” she whispered, pointing discreetly at a parallel walking trail where a trio of young men formed a half circle.

“The chap in the middle?”

“Yes, with the tall hat.”

“He whips his horse,” he said dismissively.

“He does?” she asked, quickly lowering her arm. “How can you tell?”

“I just can.”

Her brow furrowed. “I never would have guessed. What about the man to his left?”

“Yells at children.”

“The one on the right?”

“Has three mistresses he has no intention of giving up when he’s married.”

She sighed loudly. “This is much harder than I anticipated.”

“Could it be because you’re seeking something that does not exist?” he suggested as they resumed walking. His gaze slid to her nape where a golden curl dangled temptingly above folded collar of her pelisse. When his fingertips itched to touch it, he frowned and tucked his hands behind his back.

“What do you mean?” Fishing into her reticule, she procured yet another handful of corn - honestly, how much of it did she have? - and dropped the kernels in a neat row as they traversed a stone bridge littered with tiny yellow petals from a willow tree that overlooked the stream. Throughout the park, all of the foliage was in varying stages of bloom.

There were cherry trees heavy with pink blossoms, colorful clusters of purple bluebells, and sunny daffodils. The air smelled fresh and slightly sweet, like a shirt after it had dried outside in the breeze. Songbirds sang lively tunes as they hopped from branch to branch, bits of twigs and horsehair stuffed in their beaks. Out of the corner of his eye, Derrick spied a brown rabbit as it hopped along the bottom of a hedge beside the willow. It paused, tipped a long ear in their direction, and then darted away.

“I mean,” he drawled, stopping in the middle of the bridge to lean against the parapet with his arms crossed, “love, at least the kind you are describing, does not exist.”

Annalise halted so abruptly that Marcus ran into the back of her with a startled honk. “But of course it does,” she said, her blue eyes filling with sparkling indignation. “Love exists in all forms. The kind between a parent and child, and siblings, and friends. The kind that comes after two people have been together for a long time, and the kind that comes when they’ve only just met.”

“You’re speaking of love at first sight.”

“I am.”

“How can you love someone when you don’t know them?”

She huffed out an impatient breath. “If you read poetry, you’d understand.”

“Why don’t you enlighten me?”

“Close your eyes,” she instructed, and to Derrick’s own amazement, he did. “What do you see?”

“I cannot see anything. My eyes are closed.”

“I realize that. But what can you see ? Don’t use your eyes.”

“Then what else am I-”

“Use your heart.”

It was evident that Annalise had been spending too much time with her geese. Still, though he’d never admit it to Grieves, Derrick was beginning to enjoy himself. If he were being completely honest, this was the most enjoyment he’d had in… well, in recent memory. Maybe in any memory. So he kept his eyes closed, took a deep breath, and implored his cynical, sin-filled heart to magically grow a pair of eyeballs.

For a few seconds, while feeling utterly foolish, he saw nothing but darkness. But then… something began to happen. Something began to shift. His nostrils flared as he inhaled a new scent. Rose, with an underlying hint of warm cinnamon. Annalise’s perfume, dashed so lightly upon her wrists and throat that he had not noticed it before.

He heard the rustle of feathers as one of the geese adjusted their wings. Followed by the distant thump, thump, thump of the rabbit as it struck its foot against the ground and the gurgle of water trickling under the bridge.

He felt the warm, bathing glow of sunlight on his face and the tickle of a light wind through his hair.

All things that had always been there, but that he’d overlooked or taken for granted in his haste to find whatever vice would fulfill him the quicker. Never pausing in his hurtling quest toward damnation to consider that what he truly wanted, what he truly needed, could not be found in a gambling hell or at the bottom of a glass of brandy.

Ever so slowly, Derrick opened his eyes… and all he saw was Annalise. Sweet, amusing, oddly perceptive Annalise with the golden hair and a heart infinitely more pure than his own. How beautiful she was, standing in the middle of the bridge with her trio of loyal feathered companions at her feet waiting to attack his nether regions at a moment’s notice. How calm and quiet she was; a soothing balm to a soul that had grown ragged at the edges.

Without thinking about what he was doing, or the potential implications that would follow once it was done, he went to her and gently cupped her cheek, his palm dwarfing her delicate bone structure as he coaxed her face up while he lowered his down.

The kiss was as soft as the breeze. Her lips were as warm as the sun. Blood rushed through his veins like the water flowing beneath them. Angling his head, he deepened the kiss as his fingers slid under her bonnet to tangle in the silky shine of her curls and he braced his legs on either side of her skirts.

She tasted… she tasted glorious .

Of peaches, and sugar, and all that was sweet and good.

She was a sunrise after years of sleeping through daybreak.

She was the first flower to bloom after a cold winter.

She was all he hadn’t known existed and more than he could have ever dreamt of.

How did you describe the ocean to a man that had never seen water? Or a mountain to someone that lived underground? Or an angel to a disillusioned duke that dealt in self-interest and over-indulgence?

On a small gasp, Annalise leaned slightly forward, her hands reaching shyly for the notched lapels of his tailcoat as the kiss lingered, both of them loathe to be the one to end it. All things being equal, Derrick might have stayed on that bridge with Annalise wrapped in his arms for another hour, a day, a month, a lifetime.

But Constantine had other ideas.

“Bloody hell ,” he snarled, wrenching his mouth away from heaven to curse at the goose that peered smugly up at him out of a glinting black eye, a torn piece of his trousers held firmly in its beak. “That hurt, you feather-brained little-”

“I am sure it was an accident,” Annalise interceded hastily. “He didn’t mean it.”

Derrick snorted. “He looks like he meant it.”

“It was just a…” She bit her bottom lip, flushed from his kiss. “A peck of affection.”

“I’ll show him a peck of affection,” he growled, curling his hand into a fist. With a loud honk, Constantine dove behind Annalise.

She gazed at him in dismay. “You would hit a poor, frightened, innocent animal?”

Derrick glared at Constantine.

Poking his head out from behind Annalise’s skirts, Constantine glared at Derrick.

He relaxed his hand. “No, I wouldn’t dream of it.” Coward he mouthed at the goose and he would have sworn, even though Constantine’s beak was anatomically incapable of producing human facial expressions, that the goose smirked. “Shall we continue on?” he asked, returning his attention to Annalise. “Or are you ready to admit that there is no such thing as love at first sight?”

Her chin lifted. “I will admit no such thing, Your Grace.”

“Your pet tried to perform an unsolicited amputation. I believe you can call me Derrick.”

“Derrick,” she said slowly, and a thrill of pleasure shot through him upon hearing his name spill from her perfect pink lips. “Very well. You may call me Annalise, if you’d like.”

He did like.

He liked it a great deal.

He liked her a great deal.

Maybe… just maybe… her idea of love at first sight had some merit.

Not for him, of course. But for a duke with a heart.

Surely, for a duke with a heart, there were far worse fates than falling in love with an utterly enchanting, goose-befriending woman he’d met on a whim in a park. Like traveling through his whole life whilst only living half of it.

He cleared his throat. “From the sound of their raised voices, it appears as though a congregation of young, able-bodied gentlemen is around the next bend arguing about whose horse is fastest. Should we see if your future husband is among them?”

Annalise nodded and began walking, the three emperors waddling in her wake. “Oh, and Derrick,” she called out suddenly over her shoulder when she reached the end of the bridge. “I am looking forward to proving you wrong.”

“Challenge accepted, my dear Annalise,” he murmured as a grin cracked the corners of his mouth. “Challenge accepted.”