Page 49 of The Princess Stakes
“Youwerea princess. You’re an English lady now on hallowed English soil. Daughter of a Scottish countess. Fiancée of an English duke. The only duty you have is to me as your future husband.” His mouth widened into something that could hardly be counted as a smile, his eyes remaining cold and slyly calculating.
Sarani felt like a mouse being toyed with by a lion, and she did not like it one bit. Her gaze slid to the door latch. She could end this right now. Open that carriage door and leave. Find her own way out of this mess somehow. Her emotions crashed and jumbled, spinning wildly.
“Have second thoughts already?” the duke asked, watching her. “Might I remind you of the dangers you’re facing, Princess.” His use of her defunct title was a mockery. “You need me, remember? You have no home, a family that might not welcome you, no connections, an assassin on your heels, dwindling funds, and nowhere to go.”
The perfunctory list slammed the wind from her sails. When he said it like that, her problems sounded insurmountable. Sarani gathered her anger, cloaking herself in it. She refused to feel powerless, even in the face of such miserable odds. With a hiss, she reminded herself that he needed her as well.
“I have money,” she snapped. “And you need me, too, my lord duke. You have no marriage prospects, a mother who expects you to wed for the sake of the dukedom, and no way out of your predicament but for me to pretend to be your fiancée. People in glass castles should think before casting stones.”
A bark of laughter burst from his lips. “Good thing we’re trapped in this glass castle together, then.”
“You and your castle can get buggered.” She gasped as the vulgar oath left her lips, a hand flying to her mouth. Blast those foul-mouthed boatswains…and blast her ungovernable temper where the duke was concerned.
“So crude, Lady Sara.” Rhystan tutted, though something flashed in his eyes before it disappeared. Heat? “Surely, you don’t expect anyone to believe you’re a demure English lady when such filthy sentiments fall from such pretty lips.”
“This is never going to work,” she muttered. “How can I be your fiancée when you make me want to tear my hair out by the roots? I can’t pretend to…care for you when all I want to do is stab you with a shard of glass from your stupid invented castle.”
“Ouch,” he said, his mouth twitching. “That hurts.”
“The truth always hurts.”
He stuck out his hand. “I propose a truce, then.”
“A what?”
“Truce. A cease-fire. Temporary amnesty.”
She glared at him, ignoring his hand. “I know what truce means, you jackanapes. No one, least of all your mother, is going to be convinced that we are a love match. This is foolish. She’ll see right through this. Throughme.” Her feeble confidence dissolved as panic set in. “I have a feisty tongue, made worse by weeks spent with your crew. I despise being told what to do. I couldn’t possibly make you or any Englishman a dutiful,properwife. This is impossible.”
“You gave your word.”
Sarani clenched her jaw as the carriage rolled to a smooth stop. The sounds of the coachman descending from his perch reached her ears. Within moments, he would be opening the door in front of Rhystan’s childhood home, and then there would be no turning back. “Why don’t you want to be duke?”
The brief hint of humor evaporated, shutters closing down over his face. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“It just does. Answer the question.”
He went silent for a long moment, but then he spoke, his voice dripping with coldness. “Because I’m not fit for it.”
* * *
Rhystan stared at Sarani, his throat like a vise. Hell if he ever wanted to admit that to her of all people. But as she’d so eloquently pointed out, he needed her as much as she needed him if he had any hope of thwarting his mother. And the only answer he could give to her question was the truth. The ugly, pathetic, awful truth.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “It’s your birthright.”
“No,” he bit out. “I wasn’t even the spare. It was only by a horrific accident that this fell to me. They died in a fire. I didn’t.” His breath sawed out of him in short bursts. “Because I wasn’t there. I was never part of this life. It was never supposed to be me—the ne’er-do-well third son. The rotten egg.”
“You’re still the son of a duke,” Sarani said after a beat, reaching out to touch his sleeve and then pulling back as if uncertain of its welcome. “What happened to your father and brothers was tragic. We can’t always choose our paths. Sometimes, they’re chosen for us. And you’re not rotten.”
“Because you know me so well?” He laughed, the sound harsh in the confines of the coach. “You met an idealistic boy, one who had the naivete beaten out of him, and it taught me one thing: I carve my own path, Princess.”
The coach door opened then, and he took the opportunity to hop out, his soles making a clapping sound against the cobblestones. Sarani looked like she had more to say, but as her eyes swept outward at the exterior of the ducal residence, apprehension flooded them.
Taking his hand, she stepped down and took in a clipped breath at the bottom of the stairs. Oddly, Rhystan wanted to comfort her, but he buried the impulse. She would not welcome it, and he would not open himself up to being spurned in the middle of the street.
Inside the foyer, the duchess’s butler took their outer trappings, and Rhystan scanned the familiar space. Not much had changed despite their apparent astronomical decline in fortune. The furniture was polished, the marble floors shone, and familiar paintings hung on the mahogany-paneled walls. He half expected to hear his father’s and brother’s baritones in low conversation. A knot of emotion formed inside him.
“Rhyssie!” The high-pitched screech was the only warning he got before a whirling devil in skirts crashed headlong into him. He braced as a pair of wiry arms wound around him with no regard for propriety, squeezed, and then released. Despite being a good foot shorter than he was, his baby sister scrutinized him down the length of her pert nose. “Good Lord but you’ve turned into a mountain! And your arms are like slabs of granite.”
