“Well, are they?”
The duke stared down at his plate.
“It should bother you, what people have been saying.” she persisted. “They judge you for a situation they have no understanding of, spread complete fabrications.”
“They’ll say what they like regardless.” His voicecame out flat.
“Won’t you just let me try?” That young man–the boy–she remembered. He didn’t deserve to be so isolated, to be forced into exile.
His hand drifted once again up to his eye patch, brushing along the fabric in a slow, almost mindless motion. The moment he seemed to realize what he was doing, he stopped. “Why don’t you find some other pathetic fellow that needs saving?”
“I don’t want to find some other fellow. I want to save you.”
He shook his head, blinking, as though she were an enigma too absurd to unravel—and returned to eating.
For over a full minute the only sound was the scrape of his knife against porcelain.
As if he’d already decided.
As if his answer was no.
“I shall return every day until you say yes,” Rosamund threatened.
“Every day? You think yourself stubborn enough to outlast me?”
“I don’t think I am, I know it.”
His response was little more than a growl.
Beneath the table, a wet nose bumped her skirts. Rosamund peeked down to see the hound’s mournful eyes gazing up at her, pleading and... expectant. And there was already a little smear of sauce dotting the whiskers around his mouth.
Had the duke been sneaking morsels to his dog this whole time?
She smiled into her spoon.
Ah, yes. She could outlast this duke.
The girl was infuriating.
Bright as a flame and stubborn as iron, she was no feather-headed beauty. No—she was curves and color and conviction, and when she stepped fully into the dining room’s light, he felt the jolt of her anew.
Her hair caught it first. Golden-red, braided loosely, the thick plait drawn forward to rest against her chest. Against the soft swell of her bosom.
His gaze went there before he could stop it.
He looked away at once.
Almost at once.
It was disturbingly easy to imagine tugging on that braid, and then unravelling, watching it spill over her shoulders, burying his hands in that fire.
Julian forced his attention back to her face.
A predictable lapse. The consequence of too much solitude, of a life pared down to familiarity and routine.
Any man might falter under such conditions, let alone one such as he.
And yet—sparring with her across the table, trading words—he became aware of something far more troubling.