Kitty felt an odd sense of shock at that bland remark. “Yes, of course.”
His unswerving gaze made her uneasy. “I cannot credit you would want anyone from society overhearing the conversation we are about to have.”
Oh dear. This was a disaster.
He considered her in the silence that followed. The duke stood perfectly still, rigidly erect with the aid of his walking cane, and aristocratic. Kitty found his quality of stillness so unnerving.
Then he asked, his tone soft and lethal, “How do you dare?”
Ice lodged in her stomach, and her entire body trembled for precious seconds. She gathered herself. Straightened her spine and took a hard, deep breath. “I was desperate and foolish,” she said with fearful honesty.
He angled his sleek, dark head to one side and studied her with unflinching intensity. A flare of restlessness blossomed through Kitty, and for a moment she could hear only the pounding of her own heart. She barely managed to maintain her calm composure.
“Why are you pretending to be my fiancée, Miss Danvers?”
Lie, her instincts screamed, but she could not. Her sins were already too great against this man. Kitty began to feel the weight of his stare, and it took an inordinate amount of will not to flinch. “Your Grace, when I consider how dreadfully I have imposed upon you, I am stricken with mortification.”
A barely-there smile touched his lips, then vanished so quickly she wondered if it was her overwrought nerves encouraging her imagination.
“I truly doubt a woman of your ingenuity might be mortified in any situation.”
Kitty took a deep breath and tried to be quick in her explanation as to why her pretensions had been needed. “It was ill judged of me to concoct a plan that shamelessly importuned upon your good name and reputation. My intention was to save my sisters and mother from a life of poverty and unhappiness. I promise I will repay every penny spent on letting the town house and the monies and the carriages. I have planned to secure employment as a governess after my sisters are settled comfortably, and by my calculation, I shall be able to repay your unmatched generosity in about…ten years or so.”
He smiled. And it was her turn to simply stare. Why was he smiling? The man must be addled.
“You…you are not angry?”
He seemed to consider this. “No.”
Something brilliant and cunning glowed in the depths of his eyes. Then the fireplace flickered, the light shifted, and only the most arresting cerulean blue pinned her beneath its piercing stare. His entire body, his very demeanor spoke of strength. A duke secured in his elevated position, the embodiment of privilege.
Who is this man?
“May I ask why, Your Grace?”
“You wish me to be angry with you, Miss Danvers?” he murmured.
“Of course not. I have imagined every scenario in which you confronted me, Your Grace, and none resembles this. I…I fear I am failing to understand what is happening.”
There was a disconcerting hint of sensuality in his slight smile. Oh, what do I know? She was fighting to keep her wits about her; nothing was making sense. For all she knew, he could be withholding flatulence. Gentlemen tended to do that in a lady’s presence.
Heat bloomed through her at her unladylike thoughts, and his piercing gaze sharpened. “Would you like to share more of your thoughts, Miss Danvers?”
“No.” Her blush got hotter, and she turned away, lifting her face to the fresh night air coming through the slightly open windows. She walked away to the fire, and after a struggle to regain her composure, she said, “I fear you’ve lost all good opinion of me before we’ve had a chance even to converse. Not that I flatter myself to think we would have ever met or that you would find me favorable.”
She flushed at her panicked ramblings, took a deep breath to steady her nerves. Kitty lifted her chin, looking beyond his shoulder, finding his mask disconcerting. Do not be a silly miss, she chided herself, then leveled her gaze to his face cast in shadows.
She wondered how he had placed himself so well in the ominous shadow cast from the fire. Habit perhaps? Did he feel more comfortable in the arms of darkness? She was being morbid when she desperately wanted the circumstances to be anything but. “May I ask…what is to be done about our situation, Your Grace?”
“I believe these unorthodox circumstances call for informality, Katherine. Please call me Alexander.”
Why did he sound so reasonable and unruffled? Certainly the entire affair was beyond remarkable. Alexander. Though he had invited the familiarity, she could not be so intimate with a man who made her feel so desperately unsure of her position. Worse, why did his request sound like an invitation to sin and debauchery? Surely it was her overwrought nerves.
“You are awfully silent, Your Grace.”
“I am content with observation.”
“Of?”