Least Likely to Win a Duke by Emily E K Murdoch

Author:Emily E K Murdoch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2023-10-11T12:19:46+00:00

Chapter Eleven

The first day, Gwen did not worry. Her mind was full of memories of tantalising touches, of kisses that lingered—and those that did not.

‘Gwen!’

Gwen started. A piece of fried egg slipped from the fork she had been holding before her, evidently for some minutes, her mind entirely on other things.

Sylvia was staring, utterly bemused. ‘What on earth has got into you?’

‘Nothing,’ Gwen said hastily.

The last thing she wished to do was reveal to the wallflowers precisely what had happened between her and Percy.

He had not needed to gain a promise from her of secrecy. The very idea of sharing the most intimate moment of her life with others...

‘Is it just me, or is Gwen rather quiet this morning?’ asked Rilla as another wallflower helped her with her breakfast.

‘I am not—’

‘Silence, ladies!’ Miss Pike, at the head of the breakfast table, glared at them. ‘I will not have bickering at breakfast. It is far too early for all that.’

And so Gwen moved through the day dreamily, even with Sylvia’s uncertain looks upon her.

The second day, Gwen did not worry either. Well, it had only been a day, and Percy surely had commitments in Town that he was required to fulfil.

He is a duke after all, Gwen thought dreamily when she was supposed to be working on some embroidery.

‘Ladies should always have a talent to discuss,’ Miss Pike had said firmly, that very afternoon. ‘And the only appropriate talents are music, embroidery, watercolour painting or remarking upon the weather.’

The embroidery of roses that Gwen was supposed to be completing had seen no change, however, in the hour during which she and the other ladies had been seated, ostensibly at their needlework, in the orangery as slow afternoon sunlight poured through the glass.

Her needle poked into the embroidery circle but then abandoned, Gwen smiled wistfully at the thought of the way Percy had kissed her.

He must care for her. She had not expected such affection from any gentleman, so to find it from him, a man so kind, so gentle... And yet on first meeting his haughtiness! His determination that his position required the perfect wife!

It was therefore on the third day that a prickle of concern started to creep around Gwen’s heart. It was, after all, a long time to go without hearing a word from the man one had shared such a scandalous moment with. A very long time indeed after one had given him one’s heart—and rather more.

No note.

Gwen had looked up eagerly when the post had been brought in that morning, but her shoulders had slumped as only one letter had been placed before her, her mother’s handwriting adorning the front.

Gwen had given it little thought. She knew what it would contain. More crowing over her mother’s neighbours, more exhortation for Gwen to marry well—but not too well—and more vague threats about revealing their secret.

It was still unopened upstairs in her bedchamber as she sat downstairs in the drawing room, listening to the dull monologue Miss Pike was now giving the wallflowers about the correct mode of address.

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