The Duke Heist (The Wild Wynchesters #1) - Erica Ridley Page 0,42
precision.
Perhaps because they were like him, he realized. An entire room of peers shouting sweeping generalizations based on a superficial understanding would either send her into paroxysms of laughter or tears.
How he would enjoy frequent heated discussions with Miss Wynchester. She was brilliant. Thrice already he’d reached for his pen to jot down a salient point he needed to consider or have investigated in a more comprehensive manner.
They were both startled by the arrival of the tea service.
Miss Wynchester reached for the pot. “Aunt prefers lukewarm tea, so I’ll pour hers now. It’ll be just how she likes it when she returns.”
Lawrence suppressed a shudder. Lukewarm tea was worse than hot tea, and cold tea was an atrocity worse than that. He might actually attend the occasional tea party, if the teapot were make-believe.
Because he was paying more attention to the kissable curve of Miss Wynchester’s cheek than what she did with her hands, she filled his cup with tea before he could stop her.
He recoiled from the steaming brown liquid in horror.
Bloody hell. He’d offended her more than enough for one day. He would have to drink the tea.
Perhaps if he wasted enough time preparing it, she and her aunt would finish before he was required to sip any. Cheered by the thought, he began sliding lumps of sugar into his cup one by one, making each brief journey from dish to tea last as long as possible.
Miss Wynchester watched him over the rim of her own cup. “Is this another haut ton profligacy ritual?”
He was so startled, he dropped his spoon. “What?”
“If you want to eat the sugar, eat the sugar. No sense turning perfectly good tea into marmalade to prove that you can. Sugar is expensive. You’re a duke; you’ve got lots of it. I’m suitably impressed. Just drink your tea.”
“I wasn’t showing off my…excessive consumption.” Except he supposed he had been, if inadvertently. Why did all of his attempts to make a positive impression end up having the opposite effect?
She pursed her lips. “Then what are you doing?”
He appraised the contents of his cup. Was it possible to turn tea into marmalade? A dash of lemon, four hundred and thirty-two lumps of sugar…
He pushed his saucer away. “Can you keep a secret?”
“When I want to.” She lifted her brows. “Do you have a good one?”
“A terrible one,” he admitted. “One I hoped to take to my grave. A duke must maintain a certain reputation. Especially when clawing out of his father’s shadow and trying to avoid ridicule at all costs.”
She set down her cup. “All right, I’m intrigued. I promise to keep your dirty secret.”
He hoped so. “I hate tea.”
She blinked. “What?”
“I hate tea.” He shuddered. “It’s as British as I am, but I cannot stand it. I add sugar to mask the flavor, but that only makes it horrid and syrupy instead of horrid and bitter.” He swallowed. “No one knows but you.”
She gazed at him.
He turned red.
She burst out laughing. “You…haven’t heard many dramatic confessions, have you.”
“It is dramatic,” he protested. “Hating tea is my deepest shame.”
“You must try to live a more interesting life. If you were a Wynchester…” She wiped tears from her eyes. “What is your second-deepest shame? Stirring in a circular motion instead of back and forth like a true gentleman?”
He crossed his arms. “You don’t understand the pressures of my position.”
“You’re right,” she confirmed. “I would be a terrible duke. And it would have nothing to do with my tea consumption at parties. Was that why you were hiding in your carriage? Or do you not even like society events?”
“I wasn’t hiding…exactly.” He leaned back. “What does ‘liking’ society have to do with anything?”
“Nothing? Everything?” She lifted a shoulder. “What is the point of being a duke if you cannot at least conduct your own life as you please?”
“That’s not the point of a peerage. Privilege is not about oneself. It’s an honor bestowed upon one’s line and the solemn duty to—”
“Good God.” She shuddered. “All of that may be true, but you cannot believe ‘responsibility’ means no longer being oneself.”
“Publicly,” he clarified, lest she misunderstand the entire point. “Publicly I must be perfect in all things, but privately I have never seen this teapot before in my life.”
Her head tilted to one side. “What else are you hiding?”
His muscles froze. “Nothing.”
“Everyone hides something. What else are you stifling to be more palatable to your peers?”
Art.
The thought came to his head unbidden. Lawrence had always dreamed that if he