Page 39 of Wedded to the Ruthless Duke

“He marked me,” she muttered in outrage. “He marked me as his own.”

She could imagine now the way that he was smiling to himself as the carriage took him back to his own house. He would go to sleep now confident that his bride-to-be was his and no other man’s.

“Damn you, Duke of Berkley. I am not yours yet.”

CHAPTER13

“Here, here. These are the last of the arrangements.” Althea rushed into the room, waving two or three letters in the air.

Grace looked around from where she and Tabitha were putting together flower bouquets for the wedding. Tabitha’s arrangement was much more beautiful than Grace’s own attempt though she said nothing.

Althea stopped beside the table though, her happy smile sliding out of place.

“Oh dear, Grace, that will not do. Tabitha, you must show her how to do hers again. A duchess cannot carry this thing down the aisle.” She pointed miserably at Grace’s attempt.

Grace dropped the flowers and rested her chin in her hand, turning to look at the letters which her mother had placed on the table.

“A duchess doesn’t sit like that either,” Althea warned.

“I was hoping a duchess could do as she likes,” Grace muttered though her mother didn’t hear what she said.

“These are the letters from the Duke. All the arrangements are here. See? Take a look.” Althea thrust them into Grace’s grasp.

Grace read the letters which were all addressed to her father. It seemed strange to her that it had been five days since she had last seen the Duke, and he had not once called on her. Neither had he sent her a letter. Every message he had sent had been addressed to her father, and each one was formally signed with his full title.

Grace sighed, sitting back in her chair.

“A duchess doesn’t slouch either,” Althea added tartly, reaching forward for Grace’s bouquet and tearing the string off which she had used to bind it.

Tabitha offered up an apologetic look for Althea’s tart words. Grace managed the smallest of smiles back.

“I thought he might have come,” Grace whispered.

“What was that?” Althea asked.

“Nothing.”

Grace wasn’t sure if the Duke had stayed away because he didn’t intend for them to transgress again before the wedding or if he meant something else by it. Her eyes scanned the letters her mother had brought her, taking in every detail for the wedding.

It was to be held in two days’ time at a chapel in the heart of London. Only a few friends and family members were to be invited. They would then all be invited back to his country estate on the edge of London for the wedding breakfast. It was to be a formal and traditional affair with the full breakfast, dancing, and toasts.

“He does things by tradition, doesn’t he?” Grace observed as she passed the letters for Tabitha to see too.

“He’s a duke,” Tabitha murmured. “I suppose he has expectations of him. Ways that he must act.”

It’s why he wants an heir, isn’t it? He needs an heir to the dukedom.

The memory of his lips searing her skin with heat that night in the carriage broke through. Absentmindedly, she raised her hand and placed her fingers to her neck, brushing the spot where he had marked her. Now five days later, the mark was gone, but she had worn another high-necked gown for she knew her mother would dislike it if she did not.

Maybe in time, he won’t just be Eleanor’s elder brother. He will be my husband.

Yet as she took the letters back from Tabitha and read the cool distant tone in those letters, a louder voice in her mind told her she was mistaken. The Duke may be interested in an heir, but that was probably the only reason why he had pushed things so much in that carriage.

Perhaps he fears I’d carry another man’s child instead of his own.

She put the letters down on the table, strangely out of sorts just at the mere thought of being with another man in such a way.

“Now, the gown will arrive this evening.” Althea was now helping Tabitha put Grace’s bouquet back together as she talked. “It was a rush to have it made in such a short space of time, but it will have to do. It’s all we could have done in the timeframe.”

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