Page 11 of Rules for Heiresses
The incensed lady started to reply, but Courtland lifted a palm with narrowed eyes. “Did he say or do something untoward?”
“Planning to defend my honor, Your Grace?” Ravenna asked.
“Stop it. Answer the question.”
Ravenna’s jaw clenched. Fine. He wanted to know? Then she’d tell him. She’d tell all of them. “Saidanddid. Lord Dalwood’s singular obsession led him to corner me in a locked room at a banquet. It was only by a miracle that I managed to escape unscathed and in possession of my cherished virtue.” Even as Lady Holding gasped with outrage at her plain-speaking, Ravenna saw Courtland’s eyes go wide in understanding and then darken with fury, a muscle beating wildly in his cheek. “Don’t worry, I left a mark on him that he won’t soon forget,” she added with a shark’s grin. “Right in his cursed, tiny ballocks.”
Dalwood had gone down like a sorry sack of shit. Her sister-in-law, Sarani, had imparted that valuable instruction: a knee was always best, but when severely limited by skirts and petticoats, a swinging fist released with as much force as possible could do as much damage to those tender parts. But with the manhandling marquess, Ravenna had gone one step further, not that she’d admit to exactlywhatshe’d done. Suffice it to say that Dalwood got what he deserved.
“Well, Inever!” Lady Holding screeched. “Such lies. You are a disgr—”
A low growl erupted from the man beside her. “Not another word, Lady Holding, or you will find yourself removed from my presence.”
Heart hammering, Ravenna wanted to stare at him, but she kept her gaze averted. She’d anticipated no one would credit her for speaking the truth, but Courtland’s rebuke sounded like the opposite. Unexpected warmth slid through her veins. Hebelievedher.
Mr. Bingham gave a discreet cough into the tense silence. “Let me be clear here, Duke and ladies, and state the obvious. You were witnessed on the floor in an extremely compromising embrace. Lady Ravenna, you are the daughter of a duke and sister to one, and are yet unmarried. As such, the damage to your reputation will be unsalvageable.” He took a measured breath, letting the impact sink in. “Your Grace, it is your duty as a gentleman to make reparations. In the most placid way I can say it, you have compromised the young lady.”
“No, he categorically did not—” Ravenna began.
“He’s right,” Courtland interrupted. “We might not be in England, but the rules of society and civility still apply.”
“Well, I disagree,” she fumed, all earlier warm thoughts of him slipping away. She glared at Bingham. “I kissed him as well. If anything,Icompromised him, yet you don’t see me flinging marital platitudes at his head. We were both at fault and now we can each go our own separate ways like reasonable adults.”
But they were angry and utterly useless words. A gentleman of honor—even one with scruples as skewed as the hard-nosed Courtland Chase—would never let a lady face the consequences of ruination alone. She saw it written all over him…the silent and martyred acceptance of his fate. Ofherfate.
Devil take him.
Wasn’t he rumored to be hard-hearted and cold-blooded?
“I won’t,” she said again, louder this time.
He lifted a brow. “Such protestations. Afraid you’ll fall head over heels in love with me?”
“As if that would ever happen, you arrogant clod. I don’t enjoy being entrapped.”
“Imagine how I feel.”
Bingham cleared his throat again, and they both stared at him, she in impotent wrath, Courtland with amused restraint. “Even with a marriage to a man well respected in local society here, the gossip will not be curbed. Lady Ravenna will still be spurned.”
“I don’t care about any of those blockheads in theton!” she bit out.
Lady Holding sniffed. “You mightn’t, but what about your mother, the dowager duchess? What about Lord Ashvale’s younger stepsisters, the elder only months away from making a suitable match herself? Your actions have much broader consequences than you can imagine, you selfish girl.”
Helpless tears stung at Ravenna’s eyes, even as her lips tingled at the memory of their kisses. She should never have entered this stupid club! She should never have played cards with him. None of this would have happened.
“Why couldn’t you just have let me go?” she whispered.
Courtland’s jaw clenched at the accusation in her tone, but he addressed his words to his late father’s solicitor, no amusement in his tone now. “I gather that a duke will have greater success than a mere mister at silencing the chinwaggers and the tide of gossip.”
Bingham nodded gravely. “I fear it is so.”
“Then, fine, a ducal wedding, it is,” he said with a martyred sigh that made Ravenna want to scream. Because there was nothing she could do besides watch the trap of wedlock snap taut.
Not a deuced thing.
* * *
A grand wedding was the least of Courtland’s problems. At the top of the list were his family and the storm he knew would be coming from his stepmother and Stinson in particular. After all, he was well aware that Stinson had been falsely pretending to be the Marquess of Borne for a number of years, while everyone—except their grandfather—presumed the elder brother dead. Even in his bedridden illness, the late duke had kept regular tabs on Courtland’s life.
