brow and stared down at her. “That is true and, I think, ridiculous. You have the same blood as I do, the same heart as I do.”
“And yet mine is supposed to pump with emotion while yours can pound with ambition.” She tilted her head. “If you allow me ambition, am I to believe you actually experience emotion, Your Grace?”
He smiled despite the barb. Because of the barb, perhaps. “I will own it. Despite all outward appearances.”
Her expression softened a moment and then she darted her gaze away, staring back out at the crowd. “I suppose I have been known to make a friendly wager now and again.”
He drew back at the admission. “Have you now? Fascinating. I would not have taken you for a gambler. And what kinds of things do you wager on?”
She pursed her lips and then shrugged. “Do you see Lady Blain, Sir Richard’s wife?” When Nathan scanned the small group helplessly, she glanced up at him. “The older lady in yellow. With the ridiculous feather in her hair.”
He found the subject of her query easily now. An older woman with gray hair that still had streaks of black through it, adorned with the biggest peacock feather he’d ever seen. It flopped forward and back, occasionally flitting into her eyes so she had to whack it back with her hand to see. She clung to the arm of an even more ancient gentleman, who Nathan assumed was Sir Richard.
“Yes, what about her?”
“If I were to make a wager tonight, it would be during what course Lady Blain will doze off.”
He blinked. “You would wager that the woman would fall asleep…at supper. At a table full of…what, fifteen guests?”
She smiled brightly up at him in response, and suddenly his heart beat a bit faster. He knew the expression wasn’t exactly true, she felt no warmth toward him, but it hit him in the gut regardless.
“I would wager which course it would happen during,” she corrected him. “Are you saying you do not think it would happen at all?”
“I don’t see how it could,” he muttered.
She folded her arms. “Very well. A pound.”
“What?”
She pivoted toward him. “I bet you a pound that she falls asleep after the soup but before the cheese.”
“A pound,” he repeated, feeling both confused and amused.
She tilted her head. “Too rich for your blood, Your Grace?”
“You are serious.”
She gave a small, thin smile. “As the grave.”
He extended a hand to her. “Very well, Mrs. Montgomery, I will take that wager. One pound to the winner.”
She stared at his hand a moment and then reluctantly took it. He jolted at the electric awareness that shot up his arm when he touched her. It was not something that happened often. In fact, he wasn’t certain he had ever touched this woman. Normally she stayed at a fair distance from him.
But now, even through both their gloves, even in this benign way, the fact that she stirred an unexpected and unwanted desire in him was patently clear.
She tugged her hand away and shoved it behind her back. “I look forward to collecting my winnings, Your Grace. Excuse me.”
She walked away without waiting for his response and glided off into the crowd toward Owen and Celeste. He watched her go, attracted and dissatisfied all at once, just as he often was when he interacted with her. But he had no time to contemplate it, nor anything else, because the bell was rung and the crowd began to file out toward the dining room and the supper where his fortune would be won…or lost on the sleepy whim of one Lady Blain.
Chapter 2
Abigail was seated at Pippa’s right hand at one end of the table, and at the other Gilmore was on the right of Rhys. They could not have been farther apart, a situation she often requested when they were forced into the same space. She ought to have been pleased by it. And yet she found herself stealing gazes down the table at him as the party ate and chatted around her.
Gilmore was often a serious person. When she’d asked him about feeling emotions, she had expected him to brush off the very idea. He certainly didn’t show them often. He was everything a good duke should be, after all, and Society did not much value anything but deep consideration and mild reaction, even to the worst situation.
And yet, when he was with Rhys, she saw fleeting glimpses of another side to the man. One she was