Page 191 of Ten Lords for the Holidays

The thought of being laughed at again by the Duke of Newton was too much.

Disaster. Humiliation.

Being a doctor was all about helping people. Saving them. She merely had to convince herself that giving up the medical aspect was worth it, and that there would be thousands of female doctors after her, such that her failure wouldn’t matter. Her success in finding a husband who would save her family would be worth it.

“I will.” A promise as sacred as the Hippocratic oath.

So this was it. No three good things today, just one terrible thing. One lonely thing, as usual. It was ironic to feel alone in a family with five children, but she was always on the edge of the hubbub.

She’d have to leave University of Banton and her studies and be on her own again, after having found kinship with the other women there and nearly—so nearly her teeth ached—achieved what she’d worked for over years.

As usual, she’d thought she had a lucky three. But actually, she was a solitary one. A single bad thing. Worse still. She was going to have to marry, resulting in her nemesis of a number: two.

She could only hope her nemesis of a duke wouldn’t be present to witness her downfall.

CHAPTER2

The ballroom hadlots of Christmas frivolities. Atticus Rabgent might be a man with little patience or skill for such things, but even he could tell that the perfusion of bright red poinsettias, holly, ribbons, and even a Christmas tree with candles—were they trying to kill everyone in a fire?—was both the height of fashion and highly festive.

He supposed he was a bit grumbly about Christmas. It always reminded him of meeting Miss Tamara Patterson at her debut, which remained a sore spot even after five years. He was too old for her, a full fifteen years her senior, and she’d been just eighteen when they’d met. Yes, a grown woman by most standards, but when she’d told him her age and how she wanted to be a medical doctor, that had broken him. He’d let out a cynical bark of laughter. Of course this young woman wanted more than to be a duchess. He’d been amused and delighted at the idea of a woman of eighteen being a doctor. The gods were cruel in giving him a smart, vivacious woman and making her both uninterested in marriage, having no need to marry because she came from an affluent and understanding family, and to top it all, was going to be a trailblazer. A female doctor, no less.

The irony had been too great. And though he’d seen the hurt in her eyes, he hadn’t corrected her misapprehension. Better to let her think that he scorned her worthy ambition than have her pity him that all he had was a big lonely house and a fractured heart.

Tam. The woman he adored and couldn’t have. In his head he called her the pet name he’d heard her family call her, and she called him Att. In reality, she was utterly formal with him, at any social event they met at, and Att did like to keep up his reputation as a rake by being seen at many balls. And every year he indulged in the self-torture of spending the anniversary of their meeting only with her, whether she liked it or not.

And she did not.

He really ought to look on the bright side. It had been a lucrative year, with the mechanizations he’d introduced at Home Farm increasing productivity and the profit margins, and a half dozen of his investments doing very nicely.

The moment he’d walked into the Winchester’s ball, there had been people vying for his attention. Tam had told him once this was not a normal state of affairs. Apparently most people couldn’t be grumpy and still have everyone trying to gain their favor.

Att wouldn’t have known. He’d inherited the dukedom at the precocious age of ten and even before that he’d had a courtesy title and been a future duke. Probably that was why he loved Tam so much. She didn’t pretend to like him, quite the opposite, she told him to his face that she disliked him.

Which perhaps made it all the more tragic that he’d fallen utterly in love with her at first sight. Her big eyes and lithe figure. That and the fact she was clever as a vixen and sharp as a knife.

He didn’t allow himself to chase her around anymore, long since having resigned himself to never winning her love. But this one event? Christmas was a time to torture oneself.

The second the Patterson family was announced, Att excused himself from—well he didn’t remember her name, it was irrelevant—and made his way through the crowd to her. His heart flung itself against his chest as he got close, then made a full bid for freedom. She wore an unusually showy red dress that brought out the gold in her hair and his breath caught when she turned to him and he saw her decolletage. Or the lack of bodice, rather. The curve of her breasts was fully on display.

His cock twitched.Tam’s breasts. He’d rarely seen her like this. Usually she wore simple gowns that hid almost everything and said,I’m a serious doctor.This red dress was not at all what he was used to seeing Tam in, and while he was very interested in the contents, he was compelled to discover why this change had occurred, and what he could do to have the sight only for himself.

She was looking around the room and started when he came to her side.

“Miss Patterson.” He took her hand and bowed over it, kissing her glove-covered knuckles. Touching her within social bounds reduced the longing to touch her everywhere. Until she snatched her hand back.

“Your Grace. I’d say it was good to see you, but I have it on good authority it is a sin to lie,” she snipped at him, but it sounded flat. None of her fire and verve. “Could you excuse—”

“Your Grace,” her mother interrupted, looking him up and down as though she were a vixen and he a tasty rabbit she would drag back to her den to feed her cubs. “You know my daughter, Miss Tamara Patterson, I believe? She is in need of a partner for the first—”

“Thank you, Mother.” Tam’s tone had nothing but ice. “But I am going to get a glass of lemonade. I’m very thirsty.”

“Then I’ll accompany you,” Att said, because he couldn’t stay away from this woman, however much their tentative relationship was based on antagonism of the highest degree.

Mrs. Patterson curtseyed to Att and Att bowed in return, wondering what on earth was going on. Tam had never been one for dancing, or indeed lemonade.

If Tam was out of sorts, he was accompanying her and finding out what had happened.

“Or something stronger,” Tam muttered. “Laudanum, perhaps,” she added under her breath as she stalked to the refreshments table.

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