Page 4 of Wedded to the Ruthless Duke

“Are you worried about scandal?” Diana asked, her hands shaking a little.

“Hardly.” Grace cast her eyes to the heavens pleadingly with these words. “With how much I make a mess of myself, falling into people and over things, I am in danger of making a scandal whenever I walk out of the house… as my mother likes to remind me daily.”

There were murmurs of agreement from her friends about her mother.

If Grace was honest with herself, she was also curious to know what a kiss would be like. Having seen Violet and Eleanor wed, she could see that intimacy came with its perks, its happinesses, but she just didn’t believe it was a future open to her.

“Look, let’s be practical. I cannot kiss a man,” she said with sudden seriousness. “No man would wish to kiss me back. I am neither poised enough, prim enough, nor slim enough. It ought not to be attempted.”

“Your mother’s words have poisoned your mind; that is the problem,” Eleanor declared with sudden heat. “Grace, you are beautiful.”

“As beautiful as lichen on a rock, I fancy,” Grace added with a smile, but none of her friends were laughing now.

“You are beautiful,” Celia added. Grace shook her head. She knew the truth. Her mother had been telling her just how much she lacked in beauty and poise for years now.

“Let’s not think of that woman anymore,” Eleanor said with finality. “Let’s pick a gentleman instead for you.”

“Pray, do not,” Grace begged, but her words went unheeded.

“What of Mr. Merryweather?” Violet suggested. “He’s a gentlemanly sort.”

“Too gentlemanly,” Celia said, shaking her head. “He would not kiss anyone.”

“Lord Davenport?” Diana said, chewing her lip. “He is a handsome man.”

“That he is.” Eleanor nodded. “Yet he is not here tonight.”

“Mr. Thorpe?” Celia went on. “What of him?”

“He’s currently infatuated with you, sister,” Violet reminded her. “Despite the fact you keep him at arm’s length.”

“Well forgive me for trying to get rid of him then.” Celia’s words made them all laugh.

“Look, none of these men will work for me,” Grace said, controlling her mirth. “If I was to do this, if I was to even try, then I’d want a kind gentleman. Someone soft in manner, gentle, someone easy to talk to. I neither need a confident lothario, a demanding alpha, nor a passionately infatuated man.”

“Then I have just the gentleman.” Eleanor flicked her fingers then took hold of Grace’s shoulders commandingly. She steered Grace back to the glass door which led back into the ballroom. “What of him?”

“Him who?” Grace asked, squinting as she looked into the ballroom. “I see a sea of gentlemen.”

“The Marquess of Morton,” Eleanor said with a soft sigh. In time, all her friends then sighed in a similarly besotted way, then laughed at themselves for it. “He’s a sweet man, handsome, kind. He is everything on your list.”

Grace’s eyes settled on the dark blond hair of the Marquess of Morton, the soft features, and the kindly smile as he talked with a gentleman beside him. It was true, the few times she had talked to the gentleman in the past, she had found him kind indeed.

It would be good, wouldn’t it? To think of something else other than my mother’s disapproval for one night.

“Very well, I shall try it. And woe betide the poor Marquess of Morton when he’s got me coming at him in the moonlight.”

CHAPTER2

“Are you ready for this?” Celia urged in Grace’s ear as the two of them walked back into the ballroom with Violet close behind.

“It will not work, this plan of yours,” Grace murmured back. “When I fall over, most men leap out of the way and watch me fall flat on my face.”

“Do they?” Violet said from behind them. “Well, how kind of them.”

“They do not want the embarrassment of being seen around someone as clumsy as me,” Grace whispered.

“Perhaps that is true of some gentlemen,” Celia said, dragging Grace further across the room and in the direction of the Marquess of Morton. “Yet the Marquess is a true gentleman. He would never let a lady fall if he had the capacity to help her. It will be easy for you of all people to pretend to fall.”

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