“I’ll Marry the First Woman Who Enters,” the Duke Declared— Then She Burst In Chasing a Bird With…

Chapter 7

The bird was, indeed, not sorry.

It occupied the center of the breakfast table like a small white landlord, and in its beak, held with the casual competence of long practice, was a silver spoon. Every servant in the room had stopped work to watch. Mrs. Ellis, the housekeeper, was standing by the sideboard with her arms folded and something dangerously close to fondness on her face.

Clara approached slowly. “You.”

The bird tilted its head.

“Put it down.”

The bird did not put it down.

Adrian came in behind her, took one look, and said, “I want it on record that I have survived two assassination attempts and one shipwreck.”

“And yet,” Clara said.

“And yet I do not trust that bird.”

The bird flew.

It went up over the sideboard, banked hard around the chandelier, and made for the open window. Adrian, without a word, went after it — out through the breakfast room, through the long gallery, down the steps, across the terrace, following the white shape as it hopped and glided from fountain to hedge to wall with the unhurried contempt of a creature that had decided this was a game and that it was winning.

Clara ran after both of them, laughing so hard she had to hold her side. Theo stood on the terrace steps, watching, drinking tea.

They ended up in the old walled garden, past the rose walk, where the greenhouse stood with half its panes gone and ivy growing over the door.

The bird went through a broken pane.

Adrian stopped. Clara stopped beside him, breathing hard.

“No,” he said.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“You are taller.”

“That is not an argument.”

“It is the only one I have.”

He looked at her. Then he took off his coat, laid it over the wall with a care that struck her as absurd under the circumstances, and climbed through the gap. Clara followed.

Inside, the air smelled of roses and wet stone and something older — leaf mold, dust, a hundred summers of heat trapped in glass. The bird was gone. The spoon lay on the floor beside a cracked pot and a stack of flowerpots.

Clara picked it up.

“Victory.”

“Temporary,” Adrian said.

She turned to say something cutting in reply.

He was much closer than she had expected. Neither of them moved.

“You have dirt on your cheek,” he said.

“Where?”

He reached out. His thumb brushed her skin, light, deliberate, and her breath caught somewhere in her chest and stopped there. He felt it. She knew he felt it, because his hand went still.

“Clara.”

“Yes.”

“I should not.”

She looked up at him. “Probably not.”

He lowered his hand.

They walked back in silence through the rose walk, and neither of them mentioned it, and both of them thought about nothing else for the rest of the day.

London came in the second week, because Adrian had business at the House and Clara, according to the terms of the bargain, went with him.

She hated the ball.

It was a crush of bodies and scent and heat, a thousand candles doing the work of ten, jewels winking on neck after neck. Everyone wanted to meet her. Everyone had heard the story, or some version of the story, and every single one of them wanted to watch her face while they mentioned it.

“You are enjoying this,” she whispered.

Adrian looked down at her. “I am enjoying watching them realize you are not frightened.”

“I am terrified.”

“You don’t look it.”

“That is because I am excellent at pretending.”

“Apparently,” he said, “we have something in common.”

A gentleman approached — pleasant-faced, correct in every particular, an heir to something or other. “Miss Hale. I believe you promised me the next dance.”

Clara did not remember promising anybody anything, which meant he was either mistaken or brave. She accepted anyway, because sitting still had become unbearable.

She enjoyed it more than she expected. When she came back, fanning herself, she found Adrian holding a champagne glass with his fingers wrapped too tight around the stem.

The stem was cracked.

“You broke it,” she observed.

He looked down. “It was weak.”

“It was not weak.”

She smiled. “You were jealous.”

“No.”

“You were.”

“I was concerned.”

“About what?”

“That he would bore you.”

Clara laughed out loud. “You are jealous.”

He sighed, in the manner of a man conceding a fortress. “Yes.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For admitting it.”

He looked at her, and there was something in his expression she could not name and did not want to name, and the orchestra began again.

He held out his hand. “May I?”

She took it.

“You are improving,” she said, as they turned.

“I have had a good teacher.”

“Who?”

“You.”

She smiled. This time he did not step on her hem, and this time, halfway through the turn, he leaned close enough that she felt his breath against her temple.

“You are beautiful tonight,” he said.

She looked up at him.

“You mean that.”

“Yes.”

“That is dangerous.”

“I know.”

“Why?”

“Because I am beginning to mean everything I say to you.”

Her heart stumbled in her chest. She looked away, out over the sea of shoulders and diamonds, and he did not press her, did not tilt her chin back, did not demand an answer.

That was what made it worse.

He simply kept dancing.