Page 20 of Wedded to the Ruthless Duke

Grace looked longingly at the door, but he hadn’t been seen out of bed that morning. Sometimes, he wouldn’t rise at all.

“Perhaps Grace is right.” Tabitha moved toward her and took up Grace’s hand, protectively. “Perhaps this storm will blow over. The next scandal will come, and people will forget this one.”

“You are too benevolent of heart, dearest Tabitha.” Althea flashed a doting look at Tabitha that made Grace want to wretch. She could never remember being called ‘dearest’ in her life by her own mother. “You do not see the tragedy unfurling before us.”

Althea jerked her gaze to look at Grace. “Do you think a man like the Duke of Berkley will marry you to end this scandal?”

“Marriage!?” Grace spluttered.

“That is what happens when scandal occurs and people are seen in one another’s arms, rutting together like common animals —”

“Mother!” Grace practically shrieked to be heard. “That is not what we were doing.”

“I don’t want to hear what you were doing.” Althea cut across her, holding both hands in the air to stem the flow of words. “Men marry the women they have compromised, unless… unless they do not have to. I have seen the Duke of Berkley enough to know that he does nothaveto marry you. Why would he?”

Her eyes looked down and up Grace again, as if she was judging Grace at her debut all over again. “Why would he marryyou,Grace? What sort of wife would you make for him?”

Grace felt as if she had been kicked in the gut by her mother. She took a step back, releasing Tabitha’s hand. Tabitha looked so shocked by the words that she had actually turned the pale color of sour milk.

Tears prickled the backs of Grace’s eyes as she considered how right her mother was.

The Duke of Berkley held a very high position. He could marry any woman of thetonthat he wished to. Why would he possibly deign to marry the woman he had kissed one night because of a foolish dare?

All at once, she saw again the way the Duke had turned away from her in that garden after Violet’s reappearance. It was as if the kiss hadn’t happened at all, and the way he had threaded his arm around her waist hadn’t happened. He was back to being the aloof and proper elder brother of Eleanor, nothing more.

I had no idea he was capable of such passion. He kept it well hidden.

She could see all too easily how right her mother was. He would retreat, keep such a side hidden again until the scandal blew over from his side.

He owes me nothing.

“You know I am right,” Althea called to her again. Clearly, her mother was eager to continue this argument, but Grace had had enough. As far as she was concerned, her mother had won.

She planted her hands on the windowsill, turning to stare out through the glass and into the street beyond their townhouse.

“Grace, you have ruined us. You have ruined us all. Think what you have done to poor Tabitha’s chance of marriage now.”

The first tear spilled out of her eye. Grace hastily wiped it away, feeling the burn of humiliation and gut-wrenching disappointment.

It was just supposed to be one kiss, a momentary escape from the world. Nothing more.

Through her blurry vision, she saw a horse pull up outside of the house. A tall figure jumped down with athletic ease, throwing the reins of the horse to a passing lad. The man offered a coin for the trouble of looking after the horse, and the boy nodded eagerly.

It can’t be.

Then the man turned, taking off his top hat and facing their townhouse.

Grace’s stomach lurched.

“It can’t be,” she murmured though the words were lost in the room for Althea was shouting again, repeating herself numerous times.

“She’s harlotted herself. Made herself into nothing more than a promiscuous woman of theton.”

“Aunt, please —” Tabitha pleaded.

“Dearest Tabitha, you do not know how you will suffer now because of what my daughter has done.”

In an instant, the Duke of Berkley was at the door of the house. Grace pressed her face as close to the glass as she could possibly get it, the better to keep the Duke in view.

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