Page 22 of The Lady's Last Mistake
“Get out,” Cassie said to Grant as she shoved down the memory.
“If you would listen?—”
“No! How dare you ask me to pretend at something like that?” She crossed the room, to the one piece of furniture she’d replaced in the study when she moved in. The desk her brother had kept had been too large and formidable. This one was slim and elegant, though she kept a decanter of brandy on it just as Michael had. She took out the stopper with a shaking hand and splashed some into a snifter.
“If you would hear me out, I think we could both benefit from this courtship,” Grant said as he followed her across the study. The shivers and nausea that usually accompanied any errant thoughts of Lord Renfry settled as she held the snifter to her lips. She didn’t sip, only inhaled the sweet and woody fumes.
“You have one minute to explain yourself.”
Grant clasped his hands behind his back and swallowed a bemused grin. Why did he always look at her like she’d said something slightly funny?
“In short, the marquess wants a grandson to carry on the Lindstrom title. He is determined that it stay within his direct line, but as my brothers have issued nothing but girls thus far, he has now hinged his hopes on me. To his discontent, I refuse to re-marry.”
Cassie lowered her brandy. It was no secret that Grantwas a widower. But she knew nothing of his previous marriage and had never sought out the information. Years ago, after they first met, when she’d thought of him far too often, she’d thought that the less she knew of him, the less she could be tempted to care. And the less envious she could be of his dead wife, as ridiculous as that now seemed to her.
“The marquess has threatened to cut you off,” she guessed, recalling what he’d said in the carriage earlier.
He twitched his cheek. “He has.”
“You work for a living, don’t you? Maybe you don’t need your income from him.”
“Being a physician isn’t as lucrative as one might think. Especially when you work for free half of the time.”
Cassie sighed and sipped her brandy. “I don’t see how a fake courtship will help you. Why don’t you just marry someone?”
The muscles along his jaw rippled. “It isn’t as simple as that.”
“Isn’t it?” she challenged, still unclear on what it was he wanted from her. A pretend courtship could not go on indefinitely. “Men do it all the time.”
Cold silence rushed in on the wake of her flippant comment. All warmth and civility leached from Grant’s expression, and when he took a single, long stride toward her, she felt like a small animal that had suddenly become prey.
“Once you marry for love, it’s a little difficult to lower your standards.” Grant sealed his lips, his square jaw clenching again. He let out an exhalation and turned away from her, fingers combing through his hair.
Stunned, Cassie’s fingers squeezed her glass. He’d married for love. A streak of something unpleasant twisted through her. She chose to ignore it.
“Her name was Sarah?”
Audrey had mentioned her name once.
Grant nodded. “Yes.”
She would not ask how she died. That, too, was no secret. As was the stillborn child he’d buried alongside his wife.
“You’ve not explained how pretending to court would benefit either of us,” she reminded him, lest he start to think she was softening toward him.
“Within a month, my brother’s wife will bear a child. If it is a boy, the marquess will be appeased. I’m confident he will retract his latest edict.”
“And until then, you will pretend to set your cap toward me?”
The haunted look in his eyes while speaking of his late wife dissipated, and the glib, devil-may-care one returned. “And you will revel in my attention, giving my father every reason to believe I’ve made my selection.”
Cassie began to shake her head, but he cut her off before she could speak. “Trust me, I don’t want to marry any more than you do. There will be no contracts, no banns posted, no official anything. But it will get my father off my back for these next few fortnights, and I imagine it will also give you a respite from the duke’s attempts to fob you off on some unsuspecting buffoon.”
Cassie balked. “You are forgetting that you, sir, are a rake. A rogue. A man of ill-repute. Not to mention that youwork. The duke will not be happy in the least to believe I have accepted your suit!”
A slick grin twisted hislips.
“Which do you think he will be angrier about? His sister, falling for a cad, or his sister, operating an East End safe house filled with ruined women?”
