Mellie twisted her fingers together, her mind not on the fight but the kiss they’d shared afterward. “It…um…it wasn’t a real duel. Fisticuffs, but it was a long fight. All the county will be talking about it for years to come.” Given their little village, she would likely be the subject of gossip for generations.
“That sounds like a tale.”
She shook her head, feeling mortified all over again. And angry. Mostly angry at the silliness of men. “It happened so fast,” she said. “Yesterday I was thinking of different scents to add to my creams. Today…” She gestured vaguely to her surroundings. “Today everything is different.”
The duchess smiled. “Sometimes love is like that.” Then she looked to her husband, and the two exchanged so soft and intimate a smile that Mellie was transfixed.
So that is what love looks like, she thought. Entwined fingers, shared smiles, long looks. She would have to remember to do such things with Trevor. But the idea of stroking even the back of his hand twisted her belly to a tight knot of anxiety. Or perhaps she was feeling something different. Something hot and needy. She didn’t know. She wasn’t used to these emotions at all.
She needed to change the subject. She needed to distract herself and everyone else from this confusing discussion until she had time to sort through her thoughts. But when she looked back at the duke and duchess—both watching her with disconcerting attentiveness—she realized she had no idea what to say. Her father was easy to distract. A simple scientific question, and he could be occupied for hours. And neither Ronnie nor her uncle had ever needed her to do more than nod and agree as if she had been listening to their every utterance.
But this, she realized with a growing sense of panic, was polite conversation, and she had none. There had been no need to learn it in her father’s household where she was mistress and almost no one ever visited. But now, she was in society as the fiancée to a future duke. And she had absolutely no idea what to say or how to make the growing silence anything but uncomfortable.
She looked to the duke and duchess, realizing that of all the people she would meet, they were perhaps the kindest. Unusual on their own, they would be more accepting of her oddities. That should have been reassuring, but it wasn’t. If she could not speak with them, then how would she handle anyone else?
She abruptly stood, her mind whirling as she searched for a solution. But this was not a chemical recipe. There was no way to add an ingredient or set a mixture on a fire to heat. This was society, and she’d been a fool to think she could manage such a place.
“Miss Smithson?”
“This was a mistake. A horrible, horrible mistake.” She headed for the door. “I cannot be here.”
“Oh Lord, she’s bolting,” the duchess said, dismay in every word.
“Seelye, bar the door please,” the duke called. “I fear we’ve insulted our guest, and now we must trap her here until she forgives us.”
It took a moment for her to understand what the man had said. That, and the sight of the butler, looking like a kindly uncle as he held out his arm to gesture her back into the parlor. She tried to take a step around him, but he somehow managed to be directly in front of her no matter how she moved. And then she processed what the duke had said.
She whirled around. “Oh no! You haven’t insulted me. I just…I just…”
The duchess came forward. “Never been to London before, have you?”
“Well, yes, I have. For shopping and the like. A few times.” Exactly twice.
“And here we are confusing you. We’re terrible that way. No one ever knows how to talk to us. We’re just too odd.”
“Oh no, Your Grace.”
“Tut, tut. I know it’s true.”
“Oh…oh…” And that was it. Just that ridiculous sound over and over as the couple firmly escorted her back into the settee. It was embarrassing. They were treating her like a lunatic child, and she didn’t blame them in the least. But what was she supposed to do? How was she supposed to act?
His Grace pressed a brandy into her hand and encouraged her to drink. She did, nearly swallowing the whole in a single gulp.
“Good girl,” he said as he might to a dog. Then he looked at the butler. “I think it’s time that we request Mr. Anaedsley join us to dine.”
“I shall do so directly,” the man intoned.
“And you and I shall talk fashion,” Her Grace said with a smile of encouragement.
Oh Lord. She had no idea about fashion. None whatsoever.
“Don’t worry,” the woman said as she patted Melinda’s hand. “I know just how to set you up right. Make all the tabbies jealous when you appear. We’ll get you dressed like a queen.”
Melinda didn’t know what to think. She certainly had no idea what to say. Somehow, in the few minutes away from Trevor, she’d been reduced to an idiot. And this time she couldn’t blame it on anyone but herself. How had she come here so unprepared?
And how would she manage her escape?
Eight