Page 14 of How to Tempt a Duke

“I overheard,” he said. “On my honor, it was quite by accident.”

“What a wild coincidence...” she said blandly.

Charles did not bother to apologize.

“May I be frank with you?” Lady Eleanor asked abruptly. “Or rather, ask you to be frank with me?”

He inclined his head. “I believe our history dictates a level of candor.”

Lady Eleanor glanced around them. The path had gone empty and they were all but alone. At least for a few moments. Or as alone as one might be with a chaperon in tow.

She stopped and stared up at him with her catlike green eyes. Perfectly sculpted red curls framed her porcelain forehead. In fact, everything about her was so carefully refined it made him long to see something skewed out of place.

“What is so unappealing about me?” she asked.

She asked it bluntly, almost casually, the way one might ask what would be served at supper that evening.

He hadn’t expected such a question and found himself quite without words. After all, she was Westix’s daughter, and certainly that brought her a plethora of ill traits.

“I truly wish to know so that I might see how to improve,” she said. “I am from excellent lineage, and my manners are impeccable. I move in all the right circles. I know I don’t have the kind of beauty Lady Alice possesses, and that my hair is...awful. But what else is it about me, about my person, which is so heartily distasteful?”

She turned her head away before he could see any kind of expression cross her smooth face or come to her eyes. She quickly began to walk once more, as if she regretted what she’d said. Her speech had been one of hurt, but her tone had been without feeling.

Perhaps there was more to his enemy’s daughter than Charles had wagered.

He resumed his stroll beside her at the slow pace she’d set. But, for all her steady pace and dispassionate voice, her hand trembled when it returned to his arm.

“You want my honesty?” he surmised.

“Yes.”

Charles hesitated. These words would be important, ultimately forming her decision to return to Lottie’s and setting the foundation for a friendship which might allow him access to those damned journals.

“May I begin first by saying that while Lady Alice is indeed lovely, so too are you.”

Lady Eleanor looked up at him sharply, her eyes wide and the fullness of her pink lips slightly parted. After all her careful hiding behind an emotionless mask, the shock on her face was a surprise.

“I do not find your hair ‘awful,’ as you say.”

In truth, its color was vibrant and beautiful. Any distaste stemmed from the reminder of her relationship to a man whom Charles so bitterly detested.

Lady Eleanor turned her head away and regarded the path once more. Several more people had filled the area around them, and he kept his voice intentionally lowered to ensure their privacy.

“It is your demeanor which is unwelcome.”

Lady Eleanor did not react.

“Are you sure you wish me to continue?” he asked.

She exhaled and nodded. “Yes. I believe I need you to.”

And in truth she was right. She did need to hear what he had to say. For her own good, and to increase her desire to return to Lottie’s for lessons.

He went on as bade. “You are cold, as they say. Polite? Yes. But you have no joie de vivre...your delivery is without feeling. You have no...passion.”

“Passion is vulgar.”

“Passion is necessary,” he countered. “It’s what colors our world, what provides change and excitement. A woman like you, so without passion, is like a painting without depth. You will go through life in an endless routine of changing gowns and attending luncheons and soirees until they all blur together. You will meet every encounter with bored uninterest, to the point of teetering on disdain, as if nothing will ever be enough to please you. And one day, when death comes knocking at your door, you will look back on the nothing of your existence and realize that you never once lived a day in your life.”