Page 35 of Trapped with her Cruel Duke

Louise frowned. “What? Why?”

“Do you remember many years ago when I met you in Northbridge Manor? We had just had a particularly unpleasant interview with him.”

“Of course, I remember,” she declared. “That was the first day I met Marcus.”

Christian’s jaw clenched as his hands came to rest on the desk, his knuckles white against the wood. Louise waited for him to continue.

“We asked your father for an invitation to his club, and he refused. I told Marcus that we did not need The Devils to be members of an exclusive club; we would start one of our own. And we did. The decision was made in the carriage on the way back home—I suppose I should be grateful to your father. I have made a lot of money because of his prejudice.”

“And do you have many members?”

“Hundreds. Most of them are peers and members of Parliament.”

“And is it as hard to join as my father’s club?” she asked peevishly.

“Marcus and I vet every new member if that is what you mean. But the men who come through our doors are not merely judged on good breeding, wealth, and wit. They are required to have a certain something about them—I hate to be bored, you understand, and I only allowinterestingfellows to join Orions.”

Louise chewed on her lip to keep from laughing. “Are you suggesting that my father is not interesting?”

“It hardly matters,” Christian proclaimed, his words clipped and cold. “He will never be a member.”

“Are you still planning to destroy The Devils?” Louise asked, a twinge of unease in her gut. His arched eyebrow made her temper rise once more.

“Not necessarilydestroy it,” he replied solemnly, “but certainly continue to outshine it. I intend for Orions to rival any club in the city by next year.”

Louise stepped forward angrily. “You do realize that if you destroy my father’s livelihood, it will hurt my mother too?”

Christian bowed his head. “Naturally. But I am afraid, Duchess, that your father has already destroyed a great deal of his livelihood without any help from me.”

“You would see my mother on the streets?”

Christian pursed his lips. “Might I remind you that I saved both you and your mother from many lecherous men when I married you, Duchess? Lord Archibald Mortimer was sniffing around, and he is a prig and a curmudgeon. He would have thought nothing of turfing your mother out if it meant getting his hands on her townhouse. Moreover, if I had not made this deal with your father, some fool might haveboughtyour hand, only for your father to lose the money on a roll of a dice.”

“You are being purposefully obtuse,” she spat.

Christian’s answering laugh made her blood boil. He stepped forward and pulled his gloves out of his pocket, tugging them on with practiced ease. They were unmarked and appeared brand new—flawless, just like the rest of him.

I wonder what he would do if I untied his cravat out of pure spite?

“Careful, Duchess,” he said in a rumbling, intimate voice that sent a shiver through her. His eyes bored into hers without an ounce of apology. “You are playing a dangerous game, and you do not know all the rules. Your father has backed himself into a corner of his own making, and I am merely preventing him from escaping from it.”

He pushed the leather button at the base of the glove through the narrow buttonhole, never tearing his gaze away from her face.

“I would argue that you should be doubly grateful to me,” he continued. “Your father is in my debt and therefore has littlepower over anything. I know what a bad man can do to a family if left unchecked.”

Louise searched his face for any clue as to what he might be thinking or feeling, but the mask was back in place. She longed to learn more about his life.

“Is that what happened to your father? Did you manage to check him too?” she blurted out before she had fully thought through what she would say.

Christian grimaced as he stepped away, giving a final tug to his coat, his eyes trained on the floor.

“We are not here to speak about my father,” he said gruffly. “If yours behaves himself, I may be willing to be lenient. He has nothing to fear if he does as he is told. I am sorry for your mother, but she knows better than anyone the sort of man she is married to. We both know one has little agency in escaping such things.”

His eyes flashed at her then, anger and hurt roiling in their depths. Louise opened her mouth to apologize, but before she could do so, he walked out of the room, leaving her behind, with only the scent of his cologne for company.

CHAPTER 15

Louise left the study a minute or so later, her body heavy and sluggish as she processed what Christian had said.

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