Page 70 of The English Duke
Martha wouldn’t be his wife. He wouldn’t make her the Duchess of Roth. Instead, his lust, his weakness, his need for the elixir had done the worst thing, delivered up to him a hideous choice: to defy his honor or take as his bride a woman he distrusted and disliked.
“Your Grace? Are you going to say anything?”
Josephine’s weeping intensified.
“Yes,” he said, the word forced from his mouth and coated with reluctance.
“Yes, what?”
He was being upbraided as if he was in short pants, except his sin was one of a mature man. He shouldn’t have bedded her. He should have called for Frederick or Mrs. Browning or summoned one of the maids or a footman or two and had her summarily ejected.
He shouldn’t have taken Dr. Reynolds’s preparation. His damnable leg had led to all of this. And his pride had led to the injury to his leg. In other words, the responsibility for last night led straight back to him.
Her look was impatient, but it didn’t matter. Not when he was having to extract every syllable from his lips with a pincer.
“Evidently, given the evidence, I seduced your granddaughter.”
Only it wasn’t Josephine. In his drugged state he’d replaced her with another woman, one he’d wanted. One he respected and admired. One, if the truth served any purpose at all at this moment, he felt as if he’d known for years.
“What do you suggest we do about the situation, Your Grace?”
The point of his honor sharpened, spearing him to the wall.
“There’s only one thing to do, isn’t there?” he said.
No, there were several things, none of which would serve him well. He could banish all the York women from his home. He could explain about the elixir. He could take himself off to Italy, like his brother did whenever anything difficult happened.
Or he could simply bow to circumstances.
“Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife, Miss York?”
There, honor was satisfied. Nothing else mattered, did it? Not even this horror filling the whole of him.
He heard her answer from far away, said something else in response to her grandmother’s words, managed to act in a semicoherent fashion until it was done, over, complete, only the details to be arranged.
When it was finished, when the noose was laid around his neck and he was led to the gallows—with instructions to step lively, man—he left the room knowing that, once again, his life had changed. Only there was no hope this time.
Regardless of what he did, he could never make this situation bearable.
Chapter 20
When Martha went to the boathouse the next morning she found it empty. Jordan was nowhere in sight. Nor was there a note explaining his absence.
She sat there for a half hour, feeling increasingly uncomfortable.
Was the duke deliberately avoiding her? Was he ashamed about last night? Did he wish it had never happened?
What could she possibly say if he felt that way? Nothing, of course. She would simply have to pretend that his regret meant little to her.
She returned to the house to discover that Gran was meeting with him, an event that had her stomach plummeting to her toes.
Josephine had said something. Gran had summoned Jordan. Her world was about to explode in a firestorm of recriminations.
She retreated to her room, feeling a cornucopia of emotions. Fear, perhaps a little of that. Dread—yes, that, certainly. Shame? Society would say she should be ashamed. It was a rule, one of those she didn’t particularly like. Perhaps she should try to summon some regret. She didn’t want to hurt her grandmother or Jordan in any way. Embarrassment? It was there in large measure. How could she possibly be expected to talk about last night in front of other people?
Perhaps she could go back to Griffin House with the wagon driver if he hadn’t left, anything but be subjected to that.
She sat in her room for an hour until Amy knocked on the door.
