Page 78 of A Virgin to Tempt the Duke

“I was lucky enough to have come about it fully furnished and have done little with it. I had spent the last year in the country, and this is my first item using it.”

“Well, how fine of you to have come about it.”

His manners were impeccably polished as he took the cup from her. A man like this would never talk out of style or embarrass her. This was a plus for Anna. Yet as with their dances, the conversation did not flow so much as march through, moving with admirable, exhausting thoroughness through a checklist of safe topics. He began with the unseasonable heat of the weather once more, then transitioned to the yields of his estates in Derbyshire and concluded with a lengthy debate on the relative merits of two horses he was considering for the autumn.

Anna was all but bored to tears.

“…while both have thoroughbred fathers, I am struggling to choose between the Cleveland Bay or Irish Draft mothers. It is a terrible conundrum.”

“Indeed, quite a conundrum,” Anna repeated as she refilled his tea, trying to imagine a life where conversations were like this.

“Yes, I have to make a decision soon,” he said with a wide smile.

“I have no doubt you will make the correct one.”

“Thank you, Lady Birchall.”

By the time the conversation lapsed, Anna had learned a great deal about his taste in horses and found herself with nothing in particular to say in return. He was nice enough, and she supposed his face was nice enough, but she sat in the middle of all that pleasantness feeling entirely, irrevocably unstirred. And oh, how she wished to be stirred.

It is not the horses.

She had no objection to horses. It was the absence of anything that pushed back. She had spent too long in the company of a certain kind of mind to be comfortable without it now. Her thoughts almost drifted to a certain duke when Lord Wexford spoke.

“May I call on you later in the week? Perhaps Thursday?” He asked as he rose to his feet.

“Yes, you may.”

“Same time?”

“Yes, thank you, Lord Wexford.”

“The pleasure is mine, Lady Birchall.”

He called again as promised at precisely the time he had promised, punctuated by the bells that rang in the distance. That day, he brought a fresh opinion on a third horse.

“This new horse has a Cleveland Bay mother and is supposed to be an excellent hunter. It will be quite a price, but no doubt worth it… Do you agree, Lady Birchall?”

“Yes, quite so!”

Anna did her best to keep her attention focused as they all but repeated the motions of the prior visit, again with no stirring. She was grateful when he left an hour later. Rachel was due for luncheon that afternoon, and she so badly missed her friend. They dined on Anna’s terrace and enjoyed cucumber sandwiches, fresh lemonade, and seasonal fruits.

“You seem to like him,” Rachel said as she sipped her drink, which was not quite an observation and not quite a question. It was a quality of speaking she shared with her brother.

“Who?”

“Who? Oh, come now, Anna. Lord Wexford! I saw his carriage departing as I arrived. No hiding it from me.”

“Ah yes… he is very amiable,” Anna said.

“That is not the same thing as liking someone,” she said as she reached for a sandwich.

“No,” Anna agreed with a small laugh. “It isn’t.”

Rachel took a bite and looked at the garden behind them, her focus seemingly distracted.

“What is it, Rachel?”

“It is a dangerous business, marrying a man simply because he gives you no reason not to marry him,” Rachel said, her voice dropping.