enjoy.” Miss York gestured toward a blank spot on the wall. “She intends to put it there.”
So. She was not impressed with his courtship gift. Lawrence forced himself to smile anyway.
Miss York didn’t smile back.
The rest of the room was alive with whispers.
“Is it a love match?”
“Why else would he wed beneath him? My father is a marquess.”
“What, did you think he was bringing the gift to you?”
“Do you think she loves him?”
“Who can ever tell what she’s thinking? I cannot wait to see the artwork he brought her.”
The back of Lawrence’s neck flushed with heat.
Yes, Miss York was marrying him for his title. Yes, he needed her dowry. But that didn’t have to be all they shared. Even a marriage of convenience could work with a modicum of effort.
But first he had to get rid of this bloody painting.
“Could someone ring for a pair of shears?” he asked politely.
“Here!” Mrs. York trilled.
Two wigged footmen, identical in height and elegant livery, glided into the room and relieved Lawrence of the canvas.
Now was his chance to kiss Miss York’s hand. Before he could do so, a maid handed her a sharp pair of metal shears.
Miss York rose to her feet in a rustle of lace.
A wave of whispers once again rushed through the parlor. Lawrence risked a subtle glance over his shoulder.
Every gaze was transfixed on Miss York…except for one. One woman’s dark brown eyes arrested him.
She did not seem curious about the gift. Her disconcertingly intense expression was shrewd, as if she could see through the brown paper package, see through his meticulously tailored layers of fashionable apparel, see through him to the nervousness and desperation beneath. But she did not look away. Her gaze only sharpened, as if she had stripped him bare and still wanted more.
His throat grew dry. He tried to swallow. An odd prickling sensation traveled up his spine as though the tips of her fingers had brushed against his skin.
He quickly turned back to Miss York. The delivery of the gift had stretched on long enough. If she didn’t cut through the paper soon, Lawrence would rip it apart with his bare hands, make his bow, and escape to his waiting carriage before he was forced to follow this performance with tea and small talk.
“If you’d be so kind?” he murmured.
Miss York sliced through the brown paper as though she had little interest in safekeeping the art beneath.
The paper fell away. The painting was exposed. A gasp rippled through the crowd. Whether at the romance of the gesture or because the subject featured a family of mischievous sprites, Lawrence could not say.
“Thank you,” Miss York said. “You are most kind.”
Was she smitten? Bored? She did not appear to be upset or in any danger of swooning. He gave a gift. She received the gift. Fin.
The back of his neck heated anew. He appreciated her extreme lack of drama, Lawrence told himself. After her dowry, her predictability was his favorite trait. A woman like Miss York would never muddy the Faircliffe title with scandal. She was exactly what he needed: no scrapes, no surprises.
Mrs. York burst into loud applause. “Huzzah!”
Everyone in the room followed suit. Everyone, that was, except Miss York and the oddly intense young woman with the mocking half smile.
Her gaze continued to track him, as though she could hear each overloud heartbeat and sense each shallow breath from across the room. He did not like the sensation at all. Despite the roomful of strangers, her regard felt strangely intimate and far too perceptive.
“As soon as the painting is hung,” Mrs. York chirped, “we shall all remove to the dining room for a nice, leisurely tea.”
Good God, anything but that. Besides his distaste for tea, Lawrence could not court anyone properly while dodging the unsettling gaze of the woman with the pretty brown eyes. Even now, he was thinking of her instead of concentrating on Miss York. It would not do. Once the painting was hung, Lawrence would bolt out the door and into the sanctity of his carriage.
His driver had better be ready to fly.
Chapter 3
Chloe folded her hands in her lap and did her best not to glare a hole right through the handsome, haughty Duke of Faircliffe.
All of this would have been much easier if Faircliffe would simply return the painting. But addressing His Arrogance directly did not work. Chloe and her siblings had pleaded for months, in countless letters sent to his home and dozens of humiliating attempts in person.
His