Page 12 of Rules for Heiresses
The steady arrival of the letters had been baffling. Why write? Why keep track of his grandson’s whereabouts? Why theinterest? Courtland had been gone for eleven years. Surely Stinson would have done his due diligence to secure his position as their grandfather’s heir. Make it legal and binding. His brother would have stepped up to the role in a heartbeat. Hell, he’d already adopted the title of marquess.
Even from a young age, his half brother had sought to discredit or beat him at everything. If Courtland did well in lessons, Stinson would insist that he had cheated. If Courtland won an archery tournament, Stinson would demand lessons from a private instructor. Courtland’s stepmother had always indulged her precious son. The only time Stinson hadn’t dogged his footsteps was when Courtland had left England.
Jerking at his collar, Courtland barked a dry laugh. Engaging in a public war with his family by returning to London to claim his ducal birthright wasn’t something he wished to do. Because now the venom-filled Marchioness of Borne and her rotten son would crawl back into his life…all because of one willful chit he hadn’t been able to resist. If he could turn back time and do as Ravenna had asked—let her walk out of the Starlight—he would have done so in a heartbeat.
None of this was ideal.
Hissing softly, Courtland raked his palm through his hair. The little brat had always been more trouble than she was worth.
Cordy, let’s climb this tree.He’d broken his wrist from the fall.
Cordy, I dare you to steal the pudding from supper.He’d been thoroughly caned.
Cordy, kiss me.And now, wedlock.
To be fair, she hadn’t asked him to kiss her, but she might as well have. The touch of her lips beneath his had been explosive. In a handful of breathless seconds, he’d wanted her more than he’d ever wanted any woman. In the heat of the moment, he’d have given up every penny of his fortune just to finish what they’d started.
Courtland scowled. No woman in his life had ever been able to get to his marrow and burrow under his skin the way she had…the way Ravennaalwayshad. His scowl deepened.
Like an aggravating, flesh-mongering beetle.
As if summoned by some divine or darker force, the door to the chapel opened and there she was: Lady Ravenna Huntley in the flesh. Nothing at all like a beetle, of course. In fitted men’s clothing, Ravenna had teased his senses, but in a frothy, feminine wedding gown, she struck him senseless. The dress clung to her in filmy ivory layers, fitting snugly to her breasts—now that he could see them—and cinching down to a narrow waist before flaring out in pearl-trimmed, embroidered panels to the hem.
Courtland’s stunned gaze drifted back up. A cap of glossy auburn curls, pinned away from her brow by a pearl-encrusted tiara, framed a face of such unexpected beauty that he couldn’t stop gaping. His bride looked like a magical creature from some other realm.
But the closer she stepped, the mirage of a beautiful, happy bride fell away. Huge eyes of burnished copper sparked with vexation, and her naturally plump lips were flattened to translucency. Gloved fingers strangled the bouquet of local lilies and hibiscus gathered between her palms. Perhaps she imagined it was his neck.
She doesn’t want this.
Well, neither did he.
Regardless of what he had to do now for honor’s sake, keeping his distance would be necessary, lest he let his guard down and have his heart skewered. This was to be a marriage of convenience, a marriage in name only for his bride’s sake and his sisters’ sakes. But for him to prevail, it had to be a marriage oflessthan convenience.
And if Ravenna wanted the future she desired, it had to be a marriage of abstinence.
Four
The ceremony had been short and effective, unlike the interminable days before and the inexorable march toward her doom. Four swift weeks were all it had taken for her to become Her Grace, the reluctant and bitterly unenthusiastic Duchess of Ashvale.
Once the application for an ordinary marriage license had been made, arrangements had to be sorted out. Her family had to be contacted—which she’d left up to her competent fiancé because she was in no hurry to face Embry’s wrath. She did not require his consent to wed, being over twenty-one, but he was still her brother. And there was no telling how furious he’d be to learn of her whereabouts. Or her sudden marriage.
Besides, she’d had her hands full. Bridal clothes and a full wardrobe had to be ordered and fitted, considering she only had a fine but impractical array of gentleman’s clothing. Scandal had to be mitigated, including the planted rumors that Lady Ravenna’s unconventional dress choices at the Starlight had been on a lark from the local theater, and that she and Lord Ashvale had been betrothed in secret for months. Society ate it up—everyone relished a mawkish love story. All lies, of course, but people believed what they wanted to believe.
Especially when the titledukewas thrown about.
Or said duke falling head over heels in love with his long-ago childhood sweetheart like some whimsical fairy-tale.
What a crock!
Given that she’d been practically bludgeoned over the head to reach the altar, Ravenna would much have preferred to marry an untitled suitor than a duke. She was all too familiar with the exacting pressures and responsibilities that came with a dukedom. After all, she was the daughter of a duke, sister to a duke, and now wife to one.
It was emphatically depressing.
Her mother, of course, had been mollified, despite how the wedding had come about. Titles mattered in England. The dowager did not have the constitution to travel for the nuptials, though she’d thrown an apoplectic fit that her only daughter would be married on an island without the proper fanfare befitting the Huntley name. She’d only been placated after being promised she would be allowed to host a formal wedding ball in London when they returned.
Thankfully, Ravenna had experienced that tantrum via correspondence and not in person. She’d kept the details of her reply spare—once more, the worddukehad worked like the flick of a magic wand—with no need to let her mother know that she’d been the hare caught by a clever wolf. Not that the brainless hare didn’t go and throw itself like a desperate, passion-starved creature in front of said wolf and demand to be consumed.
Clearly, she had wool in her brain! Because the boy from her childhood was not the man—herhusband—who now stood beside her, face in rigid lines, mouth hard and unyielding, as he surveyed the colorful crowd in the packed ballroom at the Starlight.
