seemed to lessen her own reaction to him as merely normal, the idea of every woman ogling him was somehow distasteful.
However, there was no time to dwell on that, for as they approached him, he brought his gaze back to earth and saw them.
His lips quirked, and he walked immediately toward them. Vicky began to scrabble in his direction. He bowed with drawing-room grace.
“This is Mr. Tizsa, Annabelle,” Griz said. “Sir, my friend Mrs. Worth.”
“How do you do?” Dragan said politely.
“Delighted to make your acquaintance,” Annabelle replied faintly.
Unexpectedly, Dragan dropped to a crouch and held out his hand to the skittish Vicky, who deigned to sniff the long, bronzed fingers before actually pressing into him.
“She seems to remember you,” Griz observed, watching Dragan stroke the dog’s head. She felt oddly breathless.
“I’m not surprised,” Annabelle murmured, adding hastily, “I hear you are one of Mr. Kossuth’s heroic Hungarians.”
He glanced up at her, his eyes narrowed against the sun. “I don’t think of myself like that.” He rose, and Vicky, abandoned, crept back to Grizelda’s skirts.
“But you held out so long against the emperor,” Annabelle enthused. “Who we all know to be a great tyrant. We were all cheering for the Hungarians here in Britain, weren’t we, Griz?”
“Most of us were sympathetic,” Griz muttered, allowing Vicky to pull her on along the path. The others followed close behind.
“Did you rank very high in the Hungarian army?” Annabelle asked, and Griz began to suspect her friend’s ploy was at least as much to discover his background as to simply admire.
“I was a mere captain of cavalry.”
“How exciting,” Annabelle murmured, and Griz could tell she was relieved that he had been an officer. “And your family? Did they flee with you? Or are they still in Hungary? Are they safe?”
“I have no close family.”
“And I suppose you must have lost everything, your land…?”
“I had no land.”
Griz didn’t know whether to laugh or cringe at this blatant interrogation.
“Forgive me,” Annabelle said brightly. “I assumed you were of the nobility.”
Griz spun around to put a stop to the questioning and found him regarding her friend with tolerant but sardonic humor.
“I was a true revolutionary who marched in the streets to scare the nobility. But for what it’s worth, my elder brother had the land, such as it was. He died defending it.”
Whatever Annabelle would have replied to that was lost as someone hailed her by name, and she was forced to turn and greet people Griz vaguely recognized. In a flurry of bows and greetings, Annabelle introduced Dragan.
Griz was able to stand back and observe, as she often did. Annabelle clearly assumed everyone else was acquainted by name and did not introduce the newcomers. But the recognition was clearly only vague. Had they known she was the Duke of Kelburn’s daughter, she would never have been able to stay on the fringes of the group, watching as both the older lady and the younger vied for Dragan’s attention. One of the men, perhaps a brother, got deliberately in the way of that, and in the more general discussion, Dragan, too, stepped back beside Grizelda.
This was the opportunity she had waited for—Annabelle occupied but still close enough for her to count as a chaperone.
Abetted by Vicky, Griz stepped closer and met his gaze.
“Nancy was pregnant,” she breathed.
His eyes widened. “By whom?”
“I don’t know. Presumably the gentleman she expected to marry her.” Griz glanced at the others and moved further away from the path. “It wasn’t you, was it?”
“I?” He stared at her. “I was never her lover.”
Griz flushed, more at the word lover than at the impropriety of her accusation. She let herself be pulled by the leash in the direction of the trees and shrubs.
“I only bring it up,” she said matter-of-factly, “because her friends had the impression she was… er… walking out with a foreign gentleman at the beginning of the year. Their opinions varied as to whether or not this foreigner was the same person as the gentleman she expected to marry.”
Dragan frowned, but he did not look angry, merely as if trying to rearrange his thoughts. “I had not seen her for several weeks before I received her note at the theatre. Before that, we had tea together once, and I escorted her to the theatre on another occasion. She seemed an interesting person, but I barely knew her. I certainly had no thoughts of marriage. I’d be astonished if she had any about me.”
“Why?” Griz asked frankly. “Because you are not of