My Last Duchess (The Wildes of Lindow Castle #0.5) - Eloisa James Page 0,38

to a scullery maid would have known she was a lady with impeccable bloodlines. Her long face and limpid eyes had the unmistakable stamp of the peerage.

Ophelia realized instantly that her unpowdered hair had freed itself from the braided knot her maid had fixed in the morning. Red curls were waving around her eyes. Her rabbit fur hood, while warm and certainly economical, was hardly fashionable.

Edith Woolhastings’s eyes passed over it and then over Viola’s little face, framed in the same fur. She didn’t sneer; she was far too well-bred for that. But she looked indifferent, which was somehow even worse. “Is this your daughter, Lady Astley?” she inquired, as politeness compelled her to say something. “She has the look of your late husband, Sir Peter.”

Ophelia registered that Lady Woolhastings likely considered her final remark to be a compliment. She dropped a curtsy, noticing in turn that the lady graced her with no more than a nod of the head. Well, Lady Woolhastings was a lady-in-waiting to the queen, and likely took her position very seriously. Ophelia suddenly remembered Peter describing the lady as vexed by a joke, as is often the case with someone who has no sense of humor.

How terrible to marry someone with no sense of humor.

She turned to the Duke of Lindow, but he bowed abruptly and their eyes didn’t meet.

“We’re on our way to a sleigh ride,” Lady Woolhastings said languidly. “Lindow has arranged everything so that we will take sleighs up to the Thames to my house. Aren’t you tired, holding that child?” she asked Lord Melton. “Perhaps Lady Astley’s groom should return her to the carriage.”

“Not a bit of it,” Lord Melton said, bouncing Viola in his arms so that she crowed with delight.

“I came to show her the fair,” Ophelia said mildly. “I can hardly do that if she is tucked away in the carriage.”

“So this is your daughter,” Hugo said. “Viola, am I right?”

Viola gave him her cheerful grin and clapped her hands.

Ophelia met his eyes, ready to kick him in the shins if he gave Viola an indifferent look, the way Lady Woolhastings had.

But he was smiling at Viola as if she was quite marvelous. Ophelia’s heart gave a thump. It was one thing to be courted—albeit briefly—by a deliciously handsome duke. It was different when that duke smiled at her best beloved, as if he recognized how wonderful she was.

Viola liked his smile too, because she held out her mittened hands and leaned toward him. When Ophelia nodded, Lord Melton gave her up, and the duke tucked Viola into his left arm as if he was used to carrying children.

“I expect that Viola would love a sleigh ride,” he said. “Your groom could bring your purchases back to your carriage and then meet us at Lady Woolhastings’s house.”

“You have bought a great many things,” Lady Woolhastings said, clearly pained. “I distinctly smell mince pies; Lady Astley, you must discard those, or send them to be consumed in the servants’ hall. One never knows what a mince pie bought in a fair might contain.”

Ophelia paused, not certain what to do, but Viola was happily babbling to the duke, interspersing her new words amid a language of her own. She probably would like a sleigh ride.

“Mince is extremely fattening,” Lady Woolhastings added.

Hugo met Ophelia’s eyes. “Do join us.”

It was a good thing that she wasn’t marrying him, because she had the feeling that it would be hard to refuse anything he asked, if he had that expression in his eyes. She actually glanced at Lady Woolhastings to see if she caught it but the lady looked quite indifferent.

In fact, that seemed to be her expression most of the time.

Once Ophelia’s groom had set off for her carriage, they began walking again, Lady Woolhastings strolling beside Ophelia, and the two men just behind.

“A respectable match,” Lady Woolhastings drawled, in her high, well-bred voice.

“I’m sorry?” Ophelia said. She was listening as hard as she could to Viola and the duke, who were having a lively exchange that consisted of a stream of words from Viola, all the new ones she’d learned today jumbled in any order. His Grace was laughing, and supplying a word here or there, which Viola would instantly repeat.

“Lord Melton,” Lady Woolhastings prompted. “Very appropriate. A nice estate and good blood. Not of the highest degree, but then you didn’t come from those ranks, did you?”

Viola stopped babbling just at the wrong moment, and Ophelia felt a prickling embarrassment in