Deceiving the Duke of Kerrington

Chapter Five

Noelle stifled a yawn as she moved to the sideboard in the dining room to fill her breakfast plate up with gooseberry tarts and clotted cream. She was ravenous after a late night at the Weatherston ball. Though she normally loved socializing and having various gentlemen dance attention on her, the previous night had been nothing but a bore to her, the ball lasting till the wee hours of the morning. She was restless and found her thoughts wandering to Soren all too frequently, wishing she could be with him instead of in the stuffy ballroom dancing with men who, in her mind, could not even compare.

She had no sooner sat down when her father walked into the room. But instead of filling up a plate of food for himself, he marched right in and sat at the head of the long table in his customary seat. "Darling, we must talk."

Noelle looked up from her plate and noticed for the first time that her father's face appeared unusually pale. "What is it, Father?"

He cleared his throat before starting. "You know very well that I have been prodigiously patient with both you and your brother about finding proper matches, especially with you, Noelle." He gave her a pointed look that made her nervous, not sure she liked where this was going.

"You promised to give me until the end of the season, did you not?" She asked him tersely.

He looked uncomfortable, as he cleared his throat once more, a sign he was more nervous than he was letting on. "Yes well...I uh...that is to say, things change. I have arranged an advantageous match for you with the Duke of Kerrington."

"What?" She pushed back from the table furiously, knocking her teacup over in the process but not even paying it an ounce of attention, as the warm liquid seeped off the table and onto the floor. Her fists were balled tightly at her sides; she couldn't believe that what she had just heard could be true. "You do not even know the Duke of Kerrington."

"Of course I know him."

"Know of him, maybe," she pointed out, "but certainly you have not made his acquaintance. How could you arrange a match with someone you don't even know?" Her voice had increasingly gotten louder and louder with each word she shrieked, until before she knew it, she was yelling loud enough for half of London to hear, which only proved to make her father angry.

"Enough! Sit down this instance and show me some respect." Noelle grudgingly did as she was told.

"You are not getting any younger Noelle, and I have let you play your silly games long enough. I gave you plenty of time to pick a gentleman of your choosing, but you seemingly could not have been bothered, so this is what it has come down to. The duke is a wealthy man with a large estate. You could not have found yourself a better match of that I am sure."

Noelle closed her eyes and took multiple long breaths, holding them in her lungs before exhaling slowly, trying to force herself to calm down. A thought rose unbidden into her mind of shocking green eyes and a handsome face, and she instantly knew the words her father spoke were false, she most definitely could find herself a better match than the Duke of Kerrington—maybe she already had. There had to be a way out of this arrangement. She forced herself to sound calmer than she felt when she finally addressed her father again.

"I thought we had an agreement, Father, that I could have until the end of the season. Since nothing has been announced as far as an engagement to the duke, maybe you could make good on your word to me and let me have the remainder of my promised time to make up my own mind. If, by then, I have not made a match of mine own choosing, I will agree to go ahead with this—arrangement." She couldn't bring herself to utter the word marriage.