Chapter Three

Delaney knew very well that Papa was going to be furious with her for leaving the library. Whatever plan he had in place for her would not go through, and she found herself bracing herself for the punishment she would receive at the ending of the day, even as she accepted His Grace’s hand and stood, taking his arm. However, she pushed the thought to the back of her mind for later and looked up at her very confusing companion. She’d not wanted him to tell her his secrets, because to her that felt like she was just getting more involved in a game she did not want to be a part of, but she’d already figured at least one of his secrets out and that was that he was not after his own pleasure as the world believed. 

He opened the library and poked his head out, looking more like a mischievous schoolboy than a scandalous duke. He grinned down at her, his eyes twinkling. 

“No one is in sight,” he reported in a dramatic whisper.
Delaney hid her amusement. It was a curious feeling. The only time she’d ever felt genuine amusement in her life was when she hid in dim corners with a delightful book, but now she’d had to hold back her laughter several times with this strange duke that she’d been afraid of. Somehow, though, she knew he would not take advantage of her secret. He’d not managed to hide the kindness in his eyes, even when he was making fun of himself and his terrible reputation.

He pulled her into the hall and against the wall, still grinning.

“Come on,” he whispered, he scooted along the wall, silently. 

Delaney held her breath and moved as silently as he did. It wasn’t hard. She knew very well how to move without making a sound, without even moving the air around her despite her fancy dress. She’d learned how to move silently before she could remember. It was another way of staying out of Papa’s sight. If he couldn’t hear her, he wouldn’t notice her.

He paused and held a finger to his lips as someone passed them in the hall, and then they started moving again, until they reached the edge of the ballroom door. He poked his head inside and then pulled it back out, his white teeth gleaming in the dark hall as he grinned. 

“Your brother is behind that absolutely despicable looking statue on the east end of the ballroom.”
Delaney’s lips twitched despite herself. She’d heard everyone saying what a beautiful statue it was, and the exact words he’d said were the ones that had entered her mind as a description of the statue. ‘Absolutely despicable’. She let go of his arm and curtsied. 

“Thank you, your Grace,” she whispered softly.
He nodded. “You do realize I’m going to find a chance to get introduced to you properly now?” He asked in a quiet tone.

She nodded, unsurprised, and probably just a little more excited than she ought to be that the duke with and endless string of scandals attached to his name was going to try and get acquainted with her. She slipped unobtrusively into the ballroom and slid along the wall until she reached the despicable statue where her brother was standing in the shadow of it, his arms folded and a slight frown on his face. She peeked up at him shyly and then moved enough for him to notice. A mild curse slipped from his lips when he saw her, and then his face reddened. 

“I beg your pardon. How did you get there?”
She smiled stupidly at him. “Papa told me to stay in the library,” she said absently.

He frowned. “Alone? Delaney you can’t be in the library alone. Your reputation could be destroyed.”
Delaney squinted up at him, making her face as stupid as possible. “Papa said I was sickly looking and that I was to stay in the library,” she reiterated, sort of like a child might. 

Blaine gave a little sigh. “Delaney, you still can’t be in a library alone. Besides, you don’t look sickly to me,” he added bluntly. “If anything, your cheeks are pinker than usual.” 

Delaney felt her cheeks darken as he spoke, but she kept her expression blank and shrugged again. “Papa told me too.”
Blaine eyed her with suspicion. “Delaney, how did you get here? I asked you how you got here and somehow our conversation veered to you going to the library. Did you leave the library?”
Delaney nodded innocently and then let her eyes fill with tears. “Do you think Papa will be very angry? I did so want to be in the ballroom, and I don’t feel sickly.”
Blaine muttered something under his breath. “Delaney don’t go crying on me, please.”
Delaney noticed he didn’t try to reassure her, which was curious. She didn’t know her brother all that well. She had some very dim memories of him when she was a child, mostly of him being a bit of a pest and of him giving her a stuffed kitten that she still kept buried in her wardrobe where Papa couldn’t find it, but he’d gone to school like any gentleman’s son when he was eleven, and Delaney was only three. He’d appeared one day by Papa’s side, and Papa had announced to Delaney in the careful patronizing tone he always used for her that her brother was going to help with her coming out. Blaine had bowed to her politely and muttered something about changing his clothes. Ever since then, he’d come with them to all the balls and parties they attended and stood on the edges glowering. He ate breakfast with them in the mornings and dinners at night if they spent the night at home, but he never said much at all. She caught him staring at her with a curious look in his eyes several times, but Delaney really didn’t know what to say to him, but she suspected he did not know what to say to her either. She sometimes wondered vaguely if Papa had been as cruel to him as he was to her, if that was why he never came home for visits from school, but Blaine didn’t look like someone who would take beatings. He was a man, taller than Papa, with a close-cut beard and sharp blue eyes. He was also very shy, almost painfully shy, something that lead many people to say he was arrogant, something Delaney had thought at first. It had taken her only a couple of days to realize Blaine was not arrogant.

She understood his shyness. She herself was a bit shy, although it wasn’t hard to hide underneath her stupidity act. She stared down at her fan as she thought about the fact that she had never told anyone that she was not stupid. The duke had figured it out on his own, and he was the only person besides herself in the entire world who knew her stupidity was an act. She sometimes thought of telling her brother, because he seemed kind. He never patronized her like Papa and so many others did, because they thought her stupid, but she didn’t know him well enough. What if he told Papa? She would probably die if Papa ever found out she was not stupid. So, she didn’t tell him. But she wondered what it would be like to have her brother as her friend.

Her eyes strayed away from him to the door, where a familiar face came into the door at the other end of the room. The Duke of Montague came in, stumbling slightly, his curls looking wilder and his grin just a bit too wide. Delaney felt her eyebrow raise the slightest bit at the sight of him. He looked drunk. He couldn’t be drunk though. It was impossible for him to have become drunk within three minutes of leaving her, and he definitely was not drunk when he’d sneaked her out of the library and back into the ballroom. She’d not caught even a whiff of alcohol on him when she’d been holding onto his arm, which meant he was acting. Which made her try not to smile again. 

The duke was a very strange person, she decided, not at all what the world believed him to be. But then again, neither was she. She turned her gaze to her brother again, without being obvious about it. He was squinting into the crowd, the frown that always seemed to be touching his face fully in place.

“Delaney.” Delaney’s back stiffened imperceptibly at the sound of Papa’s voice, his deceptively pleasant voice, the one he always used when he was furious.
Delaney turned, her face carefully masked in its expression of stupidity. “Papa,” she murmured in the same half mumble that she always used when speaking to people.
Papa’s face was pleasant, but his eyes were not. “I thought I told you to sit in the library. You don’t look well.”
Delaney fluttered her eyelashes at him, letting her eyes fill with tears. “I wanted to dance,” she protested, letting her voice tremble.

 She always allowed just enough tears for Papa to think he had full control over the way she was feeling. Papa frowned but before he could say something, Blaine spoke up in the blunt tone he had used with her moments ago.
“She doesn’t look sickly to me, sir. She looks perfectly well. If anything, I’d say her color looks a little higher than normal.”
Papa’s smile grew, the one that made Delaney shiver. “Well, she looks ill to me. We’re going to leave now, because I really would like you to have a lie down Delaney.”
Delaney let her lips tremble some more. “I wanted to dance,” she reiterated.

Truthfully, she didn’t care about dancing at all, but repeating things, she found made people think she was stupider.

Papa shook his head, his voice turning to the gentle tone that was worse than his pleasant one. There was nothing gentle about Papa. “Blaine go call for the horses. Come on Delaney.”
Delaney let a single tear slip down her cheek and took Papa’s arm in silence. She was not at all disappointed to leave the ballroom. The beating she was going to receive was inevitable, and it might as well happen now as well as later.