Good Dukes Wear Black by Manda Collins Page A

free afternoons.
    After requesting her maid to bring them some tea, Mrs. Dauntry gestured for Ophelia to take a seat on the chintz sofa across from her, then waited with an expectant look on her still attractive face.
    â€œWell, my dear,” Mrs. Dauntry said, brows raised. “I’m waiting.”
    Though most mothers of the ton with unwed daughters would see the Duke of Trent as a matrimonial prize of epic proportions, Mrs. Dauntry had her heart set on one of her daughters marrying the son of her dearest friend, the dowager Lady Goring. And since Ophelia’s sister Mariah had been fortunate enough to receive a proposal from the Marquess of Kinston earlier in the year, it was up to Ophelia to accept the addresses of Lord Goring.
    â€œIt was merely a ride in his curricle, Mama,” Ophelia said patiently, crossing her fingers behind her back at the fib. She didn’t bother to explain for the umpteenth time that the idea of marrying the amiable but utterly dull Lord Goring made her want to flee to the Continent and join a convent. Not to mention that Trent’s kiss had told her in no uncertain terms that what she felt for him was not mere friendship. But she said anyway, “We are friends. That is all.”
    She had no intention of talking through her confused feelings about Trent in light of the kiss they’d shared. But she did know that it hadn’t made her any more eager to spend time in the company of Lord Goring. If anything it had solidified her aversion to him.
    Whenever a potential rival for Goring came on the scene, Ophelia was forced to listen again to all the myriad reasons why her mother thought Goring would be such a wonderful husband and why the supposed rival would not. She was not in the mood to hear all of Lord Goring’s supposed virtues praised to the heavens. Not when she’d spent the afternoon investigating the disappearance of a dear friend whose loving husband might have had her locked away. And definitely not when she’d been thoroughly kissed by another man.
    One of those reasons alone might have put her off Goring temporarily, but both together meant that there was no conceivable way that she could contemplate accepting the man’s advances.
    â€œI fail to see how you can call the Duke of Trent your friend, Ophelia,” said Mrs. Dauntry sharply, making her feel guilty despite herself. “Not when you are all but promised to Lord Goring. It isn’t appropriate for a betrothed lady to have male friends.”
    Sighing, Ophelia wished she could point out that there was no betrothal between herself and Lord Goring, but in Mrs. Dauntry’s mind it was all agreed to but for the technicality of the actual betrothal. It was Trent who was the usurper in Mrs. Dauntry’s mind, not Goring. And nothing Ophelia said would change her mind.
    â€œWe happened to be visiting a mutual acquaintance and the duke offered to give me a ride home,” Ophelia said aloud, wishing she could simply leave the room and retreat to her own. “There is nothing to concern yourself over.”
    She felt a trifle guilty about the half-truth, but she knew that Mrs. Dauntry would not be any happier with the news that she’d been with Maggie earlier in the day than she had been about Trent. As someone who took her social standing quite seriously, Mrs. Dauntry saw her daughter’s friendship with Maggie Grayson as a threat. Not only did Maggie write for a newspaper, she also encouraged Ophelia to do so. Which in turn endangered Ophelia’s nonexistent understanding with Lord Goring.
    â€œThere is everything to concern myself over,” Mrs. Dauntry reminded her with a frown, “especially when you parade around town with a man who is not your—”
    The arrival of the tea tray stopped Mrs. Dauntry in mid-reply, which Ophelia could tell from the set of her lips put her nose out of joint. But once she’d poured for both of them and her maid was