Page 8 of The Icy Duke Claims a Bride

“I will not agree to any marriage!” she said as clearly and decidedly as she could without raising her voice and drawing attention. “Did my father not tell you that I have always refused to marry?”

“But men and women of the aristocracy have a duty to marry and produce children in order to continue their lines,” Hugh pointed out, deploying one of the arguments that had played on his mind over the years and eventually convinced him of his duty to marry. “My heirs would also be the heirs of my father and my grandfather, whom I loved.”

“I would give my father no such tribute,” Catherine replied with a contempt that shocked him. “And what about your mother? Wouldn’t your children be her heirs just as much as your father’s?”

“My mother died when I was born,” Hugh explained, feeling unexpectedly stirred up by her words and actions that afternoon. “If I had known and loved my mother as I did my father, then yes, I would see my sons and daughters as her heirs, too. My name is Hugh, by the way.”

“I see,” she said shortly, looking away from him. “I’m sorry about your mother.”

Hugh spotted the tears in her eyes, a strange but touching contrast to her abrupt, commanding manner.

“Would you want to give your mother heirs?” he asked, following a hunch. “They would be her grandchildren as well as your father’s.”

Catherine was still for a long time, and Hugh could see that she was thinking and fighting for control of her feelings. He knew only too well how that felt.

“I think we are both outsiders,” he added, putting words to something that had been rising within him since he first laid eyes on her. “Aren’t we? We’re both struggling with the expectations of others.”

“I cannot marry,” Catherine repeated, her tone desolate.

“Your father suggested that I might marry Miss Jemima instead,” Hugh told her, thinking that she might be relieved to hear this, even though he regarded that option as less than ideal.

“No!” Catherine gasped, her eyes opening wide. “You cannot marry Jemima. She is too young and doesn’t understand anything about men.”

“I agree, but I must have a wife and a fitting mother for my children. The connection with your family is a good one, and I see no preferable means of finding myself a woman of suitable caliber. If I cannot have you, then Miss Jemima is the obvious alternative.”

Catherine looked torn by conflicting emotions, as though she had been suddenly cast out to sea in a storm. Hugh wished he could reach out and steady the rudder of her vessel, but she was too far away.

“Then I will marry you, Hugh,” she conceded, at last, with far more sorrow in her voice than the joy that Society would expect from a bride.

Still, with him as her bridegroom, perhaps it was only apt that Catherine gave herself to him in sorrow rather than in joy. This woman also had her own tragedies and her own inner pain, he sensed. He felt an increasing conviction that they were in some way alike.

“I am honored by your acceptance of my proposal, Miss Wright.” Hugh bowed.

He was then astonished to feel her hand reach out and touch his mask as he raised his head. He quickly covered her fingers with his own and lowered their hands, afraid that she meant to rip the mask off his face and reveal his scars.

“Don’t,” he uttered sternly.

“I only wanted to feel what it was made of. Is it silk?”

“Yes. Silk is the softest on my scars. I was in a fire a long time ago,” he explained.

“You don’t have to wear it for me,” Catherine told him unexpectedly, with a challenging tilt of her chin. “You can take it off if you want. I have already agreed to marry you, haven’t I?”

“Aren’t you afraid?” he asked. “Many people are—perhaps most people.”

“I have no reason to be afraid of you, Your Grace. It is true that I never wished to marry, but you have convinced me. This is the right step for all of us in a very complex situation. I am not afraid, and if I am to lie with you as your wife, I will wish to look upon your face.”

No woman had ever said such a thing to him, certainly not the paid companions he had brought to his bed in his youth. Nor the widowed Lady Brightling, with her veiled features and acute self-consciousness of the large purple birthmark on her face.

Despite Hugh’s assurances, Lady Brightling had only ever wanted to make love in total darkness, her anxieties far worse than his own. In the daylight, she would always be masked or veiled. Theirs had been a long affair, and loving in its own way, but limited in the end by their mutual inability to look at one another in the light.

While Hugh was now at a loss for words in the face of Catherine’s declaration, his heart and loins suffered no such stalling. A strong surge of desire flowed instantly through his veins at the very idea of bedding the woman before him.

“Are you absolutely certain?” he asked, instinctively stepping closer to her, and admitting once more that her disheveled state attracted him strongly, reminding him of bedroom play. “You will want to see my face when we lie together?”

Looking into her eyes only made his heart race faster and his desire burn stronger. There was still a conflict playing out on the face of the woman who had just promised herself to him. She was not afraid of him, but she was afraid of something, and could not hide it any more than she could hide the longing that was widening her eyes and flushing her cheeks.

Catherine wanted him to kiss her, he strongly suspected, but she was also afraid of that kiss.

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