It was done without haste, without drama; he simply moved, and was there, and she pulled up short to avoid walking directly into his chest.
“Does your brother believe you’re at home tonight?” he asked.
Caroline met his gaze. “Where I am tonight,” she said, “is none of my brother’s business.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” His expression gave nothing away.
“You may take it however you like.” She kept her voice entirely level. “What I suggest, Your Grace, is this: we agree that neither of us saw the other this evening, we go our separate ways, and we never speak of this again. It is a very simple arrangement and requires nothing whatsoever from either of us.”
She moved to step around him.
“Why were you here?”
She stopped. Not because the question arrested her, she told herself, but because answering it and being done with him was considerably more efficient than attempting to walk away a third time.
She tipped her head slightly and regarded him.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Why were youhere?” he repeated. The green eyes were steady, without judgment that she could identify, which was somehow more difficult to deflect than censure would have been. “Not the nearest assembly room, not a friend’s house, not anywhere within the considerable radius of places a woman of your position might spend an evening undetected.Here.This particular tavern, in this particular district. Why?”
Caroline did not intend to tell him about her list. She’d rather die. “It’s personal.”
“Evidently.” He arched that brow again, and Caroline truly wanted to punch him.
“If I did not tell my brother I was coming here, I certainly will not share my motivations with you, and I suggest you do not press this issue further, Your Grace.” She managed in a saccharine tone that did not extend to her eyes.
“I’m not pressing. I’m waiting.” His green eyes were fixed. “There’s a difference.”
She looked at him and thought that he was categorically the most infuriating man she had encountered in a lifetime of encountering infuriating men. Her uncle had been infuriating through cruelty. Her brother was infuriated by excessive care.
And the Duke of Wynford was infuriating through sheer, composed, immovable patience, which was arguably the most aggravating variety.
“You wouldn’t understand,” she said.
“Try me.” He also did not intend to let this go, it seemed.
“You’re a man.” She heard the bite in her own voice and did not soften it. “You go where you like. Tonight, tomorrow, five years from now… married or unmarried, it makes no difference to you and your ilk. No one will bar you from any room in London, or indeed in England, on the grounds of your sex alone. You may travel, you may spend an evening as you wish, and no one will call it reckless or improper or damaging to your prospects.”
She stopped. The words had come out sharper than was warranted. After all, the Duke could not help it that he had been born a man, no more than she could answer for being a woman. In the narrow alley, between one guttering lamp and the low sounds of the city beyond, her rebuke seemed to hang a little too candidly in the air.
Yet she persisted. “I have two years of my aunt’s improvements, a lifetime of other people’s expectations, and a Season that will end with me choosing between a set of perfectly adequate men who all want exactly the same, dull, stifling life. And so yes, I came here tonight because Iwishedto, and it mattered to me, and the reasons are my own.”
Blast it.
She had not meant to say so much, and she could only press her lips together now.
The Duke was quiet for a moment. The crispness in his expression had shifted into something she could not immediately name. She did not see pity there. She would have been mortified to see that expression. It was something quieter, and she suspected, more honestly felt.
But it was gone in an instant.
“The distinction you’ve named is real,” he said. “I recognize that.” A beat. “And then I’ll also tell you that this district, this night, that particular man, and your lack of reinforcements could have brought dire consequences. Consequences that no amount of personal significance would have softened.”
“I already have a brother,” Caroline said.
“I’m aware.”
“Then you’ll understand that the position of unsolicited guardian is thoroughly filled, and I’ve no need of a second applicant.”