Page 64 of A Virgin to Tempt the Duke

“The Dowager Countess of Birchall.”

He had not realized, until the moment Anna was announced, how much of his attention he’d been holding in reserve for her arrival. She waltzed in, wearing a pale rose silk gown that did something unfair to her coloring.

She was radiant, ethereal, and laughing at something Rachel had said before she’d even crossed the threshold, the two of them embracing as they always did.

Frederick found himself standing a fraction too still, watching her the way a man watches the weather he can do nothing about.

She is an angel.

She did not lack company at the table when they sat down for dinner. He noticed young Lord Comerford leaning in to catch something she’d said, noticed Lord Pemberton refilling her glasswith attentiveness, noticed her laugh, bright and easy, scattered generously down both sides of the table.

She was not cast aside, or in hiding in his household.

She was, by any sensible measure, a bright light, the success of the evening.

Frederick told himself he was glad of it, and mostly believed himself.

But he watched her laugh at Comerford’s joke and thought it was not the same laugh she’d given him in the market, and he could not have said why that mattered so much, only that it did.

Beside him, his sister was occupied in her own quiet study. Rachel had angled her chair, almost imperceptibly, toward Thomas. Frederick did not make much of the interaction, but noted it nonetheless as he did all things.

“You paint, then, my lord?” Rachel was asking him, and there was something in her voice Frederick recognized from childhood, the particular brightness she’d always had when genuinely interested in something rather than feigning interest for company.

“When I’m permitted. My duties take up much of my time, but I do think hobbies are important. How kind of you to ask such a thing.” Thomas’s smile widened. “So we know that we both paint. Do you still ride, Lady Rachel?”

“Badly. Enthusiastically, but badly. I once convinced myself I could clear a hedge that I most certainly could not clear.”

“And did you?”

“I did not. I have a scar to prove it.”

Watching his sister’s face go soft and pleased in a way he hadn’t seen in months, Frederick felt something loosen in his chest that he hadn’t realized was tight.

He glanced down the table and found Anna watching the same exchange, the same small private warmth in her own expression, and for a moment their eyes met over the candlelight in shared, unspoken understanding.

Look at that.

But then, she smiled and turned back to Carstairs, and Frederick was left with the warmth and none of the company to share it with.

The ladies withdrew to the parlor after dinner, and the gentlemen lingered over their port rather longer than strictly necessary. By the time Frederick rejoined the company, the conversation had settled into the comfortable hum of a party past its peak and easing toward its end.

He was making his way to a quiet corner in the parlor, where he could sit for a moment to recover after listening to a particularly loud Lord talk of his new trade routes. He was nearly there when he was intercepted.

“Your Grace, it is a pleasure to see you,” said Lady Marston, the widow of an old business associate whom he had not seen in several years. She looked tired and worn.

“Indeed,” he said, searching for something pleasant to say when his eyes found Anna near the window.

“How is your sister?” She asked, her own eyes now following Frederick’s line of sight to Anna, half-listening to Lord Pemberton hold court on some matter of Parliament, no doubt.

“She is quite well,” he said as he turned his focus back to Lady Marston. “She is around here somewhere. How is your son?”

“He is now thirteen years old and doing well at Eton,” she said with a smile. “I have been fortunate in my circumstances since my husband passed, but I confess I find myself seeking new purpose and engagement.”

“I am glad to hear of it. Your late husband always spoke so fondly of him, and of your household. He honors him well.”

“Thank you, Your Grace,” she said with teary eyes, to which Frederick handed her his handkerchief. “I am sorry for such adisplay, this is most inappropriate. I will get this laundered, and returned?—”

“Think nothing of it, Lady Marston. Truly.”