Page 76 of A Virgin to Tempt the Duke

It was the question I asked him surely… but I cannot betray my wish for a child for anyone…

To spite the memory, she would remain perfectly pleasant in every situation that night. Perfectly composed, doing her absolute best to look right through the looming shadow of the Duke of Rathbourne and all but stick out her tongue.

She had her future to consider, her dream of having a beautiful family of her own.

And so, she let her light shine as bright as the chandelier crystals in Lady Featherington’s Mayfair townhouse as she walked to her velvet seat.

The elegant drawing room, draped in rich, verdant fabrics and adorned with far too many flowers and candles to count, vibrated with the soprano’s highest notes. It was a beautiful song, a hypnotic and sad Peconic that should have swept her every distracting thought away. Yet Anna only heard the rhythmic, maddening snap of her own lace fan, which thwapped in time with her heart.

She looked across the crowded, suffocating salon, framed by a gilded archway. And there, as if on cue, stood Frederick in the middle of it. Anna grabbed a flute of champagne from a passing tray.

Do your work, bubbly elixir…

Anna looked back at where Frederick was after a sip. Rachel’s gloved hand rested lightly on his sleeve as they watched the soprano and took two empty seats.

Shortly after, she turned to smile at Lord Larthby, who joined them. Anna turned her head back to focus on the performance, inhaling the heavy scent of beeswax and lilies and drowning her champagne glass, so she might think of anything else.

But Frederick occupied the edge of her vision, a shadow that refused to stop trailing her.

When the applause finally broke, the crowd shifted, and the tides of silk drew them inevitably into the same small circle.

“A remarkable range,” Frederick said, turning his gaze toward Anna for the first time in weeks as she became absorbed in the small group. His face was a mask of flawless, unblemished courtesy. “Do you not agree, Lady Birchall?”

“Quite remarkable,” Anna replied curtly. Her voice was steady, though her fingers tightened around the ivory sticks of her fan until they groaned.

She looked around for Rachel, who was on the other side of the room with Lord Larthby. His amber eyes met hers when she turned her head back, as fiery as she recalled from her dreams yet impossibly clear. Entirely vacant of shared history. There was no trace of the frantic heat from three weeks ago. No memory of the rain drumming against the leather roof of a dark carriage, or the bruising, desperate grip of his hands, or the way his breath had tasted in the dark.

Looking at him now, under the glare of a hundred wax candles, she felt bewildered, betrayed, and bare.

“The heat in these Mayfair drawing rooms can be quite oppressive during the season,” he added, offering a polite, generic smile that he might have given to a perfect stranger. “I trust you are surviving the crush, Lady Birchall?”

“Admirably, thank you, Your Grace,” she said, matching his pleasant, even cadence.

Inside, her chest burned hot as bile rose up her throat. She told herself it was just the champagne on an empty stomach, but she always had trouble lying to herself.

She despised how he spoke to her as if she were a passing stranger. She loathed how he ignored her.

Then, a wild, irrational impulse flared within her. She suddenly had the desperate urge to seize a full champagne flute from a passing servant’s tray and hurl it directly at his immaculate, unbothered face.

Just to see if he blinks. Just to see if he is capable of breaking, of being human!

Instead, she took a deep breath and forced her lips into a perfect, practiced curve that resembled a smile and fanned herself. A part of her knew that would do more damage than any other gesture.

The conversation continued amongst the small group, and she nodded at the appropriate times, barely hearing a word. And when a young baronet she had met the previous week approached, she turned toward him. She set her shoulders back and smiled brightly at him, her back completely toward the duke.

This is my next move. If he wants to play games, we will play chess.

“A pleasure to see you Sir Morris,” she said with a small curtsy. “I hope you have fared well since Lady Saunders’ garden party.”

“Most well, and better now, Lady Birchall. What a pleasure to seeyoutoday! I dare say, the pleasure is entirely mine. You are so radiant in this gown. What color is it?”

“Lavender I should say. It is too light to be just purple.”

“I am no artist, but I should say you are right. Lavender most suits you.”

“Thank you, Sir Morris,” she said as she batted her eyelashes, casting a small, flirtatious glance over her shoulder at Frederick.

“Would you… like to take a turnabout the room, Lady Birchall?” He asked, extending his hand politely, which elicited an almost imperceptible cough from Frederick.