He watched her for a long moment before saying, softly, “You can win every one of them. Any one of them. The aristocratic moth of your choosing. And you chose your duke the moment you pronounced him yours. When he is drawn to you tonight, you shall begin to win him.”
And if I do not want him?
If I do not want any aristocratic moth?
If I want a moth who belongs nowhere near Mayfair?
She didn’t say the words, instead saying, “How shall I win him?”
He did not hesitate. “Just as you are.” It was nonsense. But he did not seem to care. “Good night, my lady.”
And then he was moving, returning to the shadows, where he belonged. She followed him to the top of the stone steps leading down to the gardens beyond the house. “Wait!” she called, searching for something to return him to her. “You promised to help! You promised magic, Devil.”
He turned back at the bottom of the steps, white teeth flashing in the shadows. “You have it already, my lady.”
“I don’t have magic. I have a beautiful gown. The rest of me is entirely the same. You’ve sent a hog to the milliner. It’s a lovely hat, but the pig remains.”
He chuckled in the darkness, and she was irritated that she couldn’t see the smile that came with the sound. He didn’t smile enough. “You’re not a hog, Felicity Faircloth.”
With that, he disappeared, and she went to the railing, setting her hands to the cool stone to watch the gardens, angry and frustrated and wondering what would happen if she followed him. Wanting to follow him. Knowing she couldn’t. That she had made her bed, and if she or her family had any chance of surviving it, she must lie in it. Behatted swine or not.
“Dammit, Devil,” she whispered into the darkness, unable to see him and still somehow knowing he was there. “How?”
“When he asks about you, tell him the truth.”
“That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”
He didn’t reply. He’d placed her in full view of London, promised her a match for the ages, and left her alone with terrible advice and without making good on the promise. As though she were the flame he’d assured her she’d be.
Except she wasn’t.
“This is the worst mistake ever made. In history,” she said to herself and the night. “This is up there with accepting the gift of a Trojan horse.”
“Are you giving a lecture on Greek mythology?”
She spun around at the words, and found the Duke of Marwick standing not three feet from her.
Chapter Twelve
Because she wasn’t entirely certain what one was to say to a man whom one had proclaimed her fiancé, Felicity settled on, “Hello.”
She winced at the decidedly unmagical word.
His gaze flickered to the dark gardens where Devil had disappeared, then back to her. “Hello.”
She blinked. “Hello.”
Oh, yes, this was all going quite well. She was all flame. Good God. It was only a matter of time before he ran back to the ballroom, stopped the orchestra, and denounced her publicly.
But the duke did not run. Instead, he took a step toward her, and she pressed back to the stone balustrade. He stopped. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No!” she said altogether too forcefully. “Not at all. I was just . . . here . . . breathing.” His brows rose at the words, and she shook her head. “Breathing air. Taking air. I mean. It’s quite warm in the ballroom, don’t you think?” She waved a hand at her neck. “Very warm.” She cleared her throat. “Hot.”
His gaze slid to her wrist. “It was good foresight for you to bring something to combat it.”
She looked down at the wooden fan dangling from her wrist. “Oh.” She snapped it open and fanned herself like a madwoman. “Yes. Of course. Well. I have excellent foresight.”
Stop talking, Felicity.
Those brows rose again. “Do you?”
Her brows narrowed. “I do.”
“I only ask because it seems to me that someone uninformed of that particular quality might find you to have the opposite of foresight.”
She caught herself before her jaw dropped open. “How is that?”
He did not immediately reply, instead coming to stand next to her at the balcony railing, turning his back to the gardens, crossing his arms over his chest and watching the revelers inside the beautifully lit ballroom. The light made his fair hair gleam gold as it harshened the angles of his face—high cheekbones and strong jaw; something about him whispered familiarity, though she couldn’t place it. After a long silence, he said, “One might argue that telling the world you are engaged to a duke when you’ve never met him lacks foresight.”
And, like that, the truth of her act was between them. Felicity was not riddled with the embarrassment or the shame she might have imagined. Instead, she was consumed with an immense relief. Something near to power—close to the way she felt when she picked a lock, as though the past was behind her and what was to come was all possibility.
Which was, of course, a kind of madness in itself, because this man held her fate and that of her family in his hands, and the future he might mete out was dangerous indeed. Madness seemed to reign, nonetheless. “Why did you confirm it?”
“Why did you say it?”
“I was angry,” she said quietly. She lifted a shoulder. “It’s not a good excuse, I know . . . but there it is.”
“It’s an honest excuse,” he said, returning his attention to the ballroom. “I, too, have been angry.”
“Did your anger result in tacit engagement to a person you’d never met?”
He looked to her, and it was as though he was seeing her for the first time. “You remind me of someone.”
The change of topic was jarring. “I . . . do?”
“She would have adored that dress; I promised to keep her in spools of gold thread, someday.”
“Did you deliver on that promise?”
His lips flattened into a cold, straight line. “I did not.”
“I am sorry for that.”
“As am I.” He shook his head, as though to rid himself of a memory. “She is gone now. And I find myself in need of an heir to . . .”
Felicity could not help her little huff of surprised laughter. “I say, you’ve come to the right place, Your Grace, as there’s nothing London likes more than a duke in your precise predicament.”
He met her gaze, and that eerie familiarity echoed. “If we are to be engaged, you ought to understand my purpose.”
“Are we? To be engaged?”
“Aren’t we? Did you not make that decision five nights ago at my home?”
“Well, I wouldn’t call it a decision,” she said softly.
“What would you call it?”
The question didn’t seem relevant, so instead, Felicity asked, “How did he convince you?”
He looked to her. “Who?”
“As I’ve said, you could have denied me and chosen another without hesitation. What did he threaten you with to make you choose me?” She didn’t think Devil the kind of man who would threaten bodily harm, but she supposed she didn’t really know him, and he had climbed her trellis and entered her bedchamber uninvited, so perhaps he had less of a conscience than she thought.
“What makes you think I had to be threatened?”
The duke was an excellent actor, clearly. Felicity almost believed that Devil hadn’t convinced him to marry her. Almost.
And then said, “I accepted your proposal, did I not?”
“But why? We’ve never met.”
“We met several minutes ago.”
She blinked. “Are you mad?” It was an honest question.