Page 34 of Matters of a Duke’s Heart

“I am not used to this,” Spencer murmured in her ear. “They are looking at me as if they are impressed. I ought to not care about their opinion, for Heaven knows I have not for all these years, but… I cannot help it. I like that they seem to approve of what they see when they look at you and me.”

“I like it too,” Felicity assured him, tilting her head up to meet his eyes.

It sent a shock through her as it did every time, and she listened to that thrumming of her heart beating wilder and wilder.

Perhaps Daphne and Lord Wexley were right.

She had thought of the word love herself often enough; perhaps it truly was time to admit it aloud.

Feeling ever so weightless, Felicity danced with her husband, and she tilted her head back, letting her hair stream out behind her. For a moment, she truly was nothing but air, in the arms of a man she hadn’t expected to find such a life with, but had.

And he looked at her as though he felt the same way. Back and forth, they moved in sync with one another, their eyes never straying far.

Once the dance was over and they parted, Spencer made a comment about needing to meet with a lord he saw. Felicity nodded, thinking that Daphne would find her soon enough. She wandered over to the drinks table where wine and champagne were set up.

“A fruity raspberry flavor that bursts on one’s tongue, no?”

Felicity went cold at the sound of Lord Radcliffe’s voice. Slowly, she turned to face him, finding his smile already on her. The last time they had spoken he had raved like a lunatic, claiming to be in love with her, threatening to turn his sights onto her sister.

He had implied things about the attention she received, and he had so thoroughly insulted her that she had fled from him.

Yet now, he simply cocked his head and said, “Hello, Your Grace.”

Felicity immediately did not trust the politeness.

Men like Lord Radcliffe did not think they owed politeness to anybody, not even a duke and duchess.

He was dressed in his usual green tailcoat, and where, upon their first meeting, Felicity may have thought it was elegant and handsome, now it looked sickly, and she was certain it gave his skin a green tinge, too.

“Hello, Lord Radcliffe.”

“I got your preferred wine correct, did I not?”

She hesitated. “You did.”

“Ah, good. It is good to know for the events I shall hold where you will surely be a guest of honor as my relative.”

Felicity nearly dropped the glass of wine she had reached for.

“Do excuse me, Lord Radcliffe, but you are mistaken. There is no world in which we will be related, for you are getting ahead of yourself. If you mean to suggest you will marry Lady Daphne, it will not happen. She will not agree, nor will my father.”

“Your mother has a soft touch for me.”

Felicity smiled a little too wide. “Do not be flattered, my mother has a soft touch for any man she thinks can help her daughters in society. She means well, but her favor is easily given yet offers no impressive boast.”

His eyes narrowed, and he stepped closer.

Felicity stepped back into the table, only comforted by the fact that he would not do anything so publicly, but fear struck through her.

She had been scared in the gardens, but while he had kept his words deceptively polite at first, the real truth lay in his eyes.

They burned with insult and anger, and she couldn’t look at him for longer than a second.

“Listen to me, Your Grace,” Lord Radcliffe sneered.

“I will be marrying Lady Daphne, and with you sequestering yourself out in the countryside, how can you possibly hope to stop her agreeing under… duress, perhaps? And your father… a kind but firm gentleman who is easily swayed, I am sure. I have money, Your Grace, and you know very well that money can make the entire ton turn in any man’s favor. ”

“Yet you appear awfully desperate for a man with money,” she whispered, and she had no knowledge of Lord Radcliffe’s true financial situation, but she saw how his expression flickered, as if guilty.

He leaned in close to her. “I will have your sister as my bride before the Season is up, and I will be stopped by nobody.”

Before Felicity could even process his words or think of a response, Lord Radcliffe picked up a glass of wine, drank it in one go, and slammed the cup back down, right next to her hand. She startled horribly, but he was already leaving her pale-faced at the table.

She barely made it to the balcony that extended off the ballroom before she was gasping, spinning around to try to find Lord Radcliffe, to spot her sister, to find Spencer and—there. There was her sister at least, laughing at something Lord Wexley had told her.

They were the furthest away from the drinks table, so Felicity could only hope that while she composed herself her sister was well protected by the earl.

But as she went to turn, her vision was filled with a woman with hair the color of luxurious chocolate, soft and shiny beneath the ballroom lights behind her.

“Your Grace,” the woman purred, something very heavy and insistent in her voice as she curtsied. “I do believe we may have known one another in passing, but I have not formally introduced myself to you since you have been made the Duchess of Langdon. I am Lady Helena.”

Felicity tried to mask her lack of knowledge of the woman, but by the narrowed look she got in return, she did not think she had done a good job. “It is lovely to meet you, Lady Helena.”

“You do not recall me at all, do you?”

“I confess I do not. I have attended many balls and do not always recollect faces.”

“I see.” Lady Helena breezed forward, spinning on her heel gracefully to align herself next to Felicity, both of their backs to the ballroom.

“Well, it makes sense. I suppose if I had been wed into the position most sought after by another woman who was very fond of my husband, I would not want to recall her face either.”

Felicity paused. “I do not understand.”

“Oh. Oh, well, you must know! The ton is abuzz with how close you and Spencer are.”

Spencer.

Not His Grace or the duke.

A slow, creeping feeling went through Felicity, and she couldn’t shake it off. Mustering a smile, she pushed. “What does mine and my husband’s closeness have to do with—”

“Spencer and I were lovers, Your Grace.” The blunt admission came out stronger than a physical blow, and Felicity thought she may have preferred that to the white-hot shame that slid between her ribs.

“I use the past tense lightly, for the man could scarcely pull himself away from me in order to have to marry you! He said you were the more tolerable when it came to his son, but I did not mind. I had a great deal of fun, but I am not the mothering type. I suppose some women are, but lose their fun, and other ladies are very good for fun, but do not need to be hassled with family life.”

There was something ever so false to her voice, and Felicity tried not to listen, tried to slow down her racing thoughts, and tried to not focus on what she was being told.

Because it sounded like… it sounded like she had forced Spencer away from a woman he had found very interesting.

“Do you think we look the same, Your Grace?” Lady Helena asked, peering at her, and then touching her own face, as if she could see her features.

“I do not really think he has a type, but he did tell me once, rather intoxicatedly, that I resembled his late wife. At the time I was overjoyed, for who am I to turn down looking like a late duchess?”

Felicity went faint, not the weightlessness of her earlier dancing, but the shaky, swooning threat she could not fight. Her vision blurred. Spencer had gotten intoxicated with this lady, had fun with her, and yet… yet had settled down for boring, dependable Lady Felicity Merriweather.

“He… he chose to marry,” she said tightly, trying desperately to maintain her composure. A duchess could not let herself slip in front of other women. She would not stand for it. Yet she heard her own pulse louder than she heard Lady Helena’s response.

“Did he, really, or is duty that ever-present weight on his shoulders that he cannot escape? It was practically force that he pushed to marry you. You were merely a name on a list, plucked from the top. That is all there is to it.”

Heavens, Felicity thought she was going to be ill. The wine from earlier settled heavily in her stomach, and she gripped the balcony’s railing tighter.

“Oh, dear, you poor thing,” Lady Helena crooned.

“I thought you would have known. That is why I mentioned your closeness. Then again, rumors make Spencer a murderer, and you… a—well, a very terrible name prior to your marriage. And given Spencer’s history…

one cannot assume too far out, can they?

So perhaps these rumors of your closeness and blossoming love are not so strong at all.

Anyway, do excuse me, Your Grace, I must dance with that very handsome lord.

Not all of us can be handpicked by a methodical duke who cannot look past his own iced-over heart to love. ”

Lady Helena left quickly, but the shame she had incited in Felicity did not. It burned in her chest, infecting a tremor in her hands, and left her outraged and trembling against the railing. Her knees buckled but she held on steadfast.

Spencer and I were lovers…

You were merely a name on a list, plucked from the top.

I do not really think he has a type, but he did tell me once, rather intoxicatedly, that I resembled his late wife.

I thought you would have known.

“No,” Felicity whispered to nobody. “I did not know any of this.”

Suddenly, arms caught her when she realized she had finally succumbed to her legs’ weakness, but as soon as she caught scent of leather and that fern plant from Spencer’s study, she wrenched herself away from her husband.

“Felicity, what is—”

“Stop,” she hissed. “Just—do not. Do not speak to me right now.”