Page 10 of Married to the Forbidden Duke
It had taken Frederick a fair amount of time, money, and effort to identify her. She did not live in London, and she had not associated with London Society in some years—she had quite fallen out of the public eye. But when he researched her family, he discovered that the Ravenshires were an old family, one going back generations. Miss Ravenshire was, then, irrefutably a lady, although she had not behaved as one.
“Ah,” Lord Timberley said as the door opened, a note of relief in his voice. “Here she is now.”
…And here she wasindeed.
She limped into the room, her eyes flashing with defiance and her jaw hard. Frederick was not accustomed to people so outwardly despising him. Oh, plenty had done in his past, he knew. And he deserved their condemnation.
But this girl—thischitof a girl who had traveled down to London and interrupted his wedding, causing a scandal large enough that his bride’s father had pulled her out of the wedding entirely—didnotshare the same right to hate him.
If she hadn’t limped so badly, her weight resting rather heavily on her left leg rather than her right, he admitted that she might have been rather pretty. Despite that, even, there was something taking about her expression, the challenge in it.
The sharp angle of her jaw, the slim line of her nose, and those large, hazel eyes of hers. Today, they looked especially dark.
Behind her, Lady Timberley bobbed a curtsy. “Here she is, Your Grace.”
“Excellent.” He balanced the papers he had brought with him on his knee. “What do you have to say for yourself, Miss Ravenshire.”
He didn’t miss the way she glanced at her aunt and uncle, or the way her thin fists clutched at the material of her skirts. “I have nothing to say, Your Grace.”
“Is that so…” he said dryly. “I distinctly recall that not being the case when you interrupted my wedding. Quite the accusations you hurled at me, and in the hearing of my father-in-law-to-be, which was no doubt your intention. The wedding was called off, of course, as I’m sure you’re aware by now.
“The question is… why would you do such a thing?”
He left a pause, which she made no attempt to fill. Her ashen-faced aunt and uncle gaped at him in horror. When he’d arrived at the house, he’d assumed they’d known, either condoning her actions or not, but now, it seemed they were ignorant of her intentions.
“And how do you intend to repair the damage to my reputation?” he finished bluntly.
She sank into a chair, doing her best to conceal her motions, but he caught a flicker of discomfort across her face. Whatever ailed her leg obviously caused her pain, too. He would have more sympathy if she had not behaved in such a terrible, hoydenish way.
“Is this true?” her uncle demanded, the ire in his voice a mere rasp.
Miss Ravenshire’s nostrils flared, and she glanced at Frederick before looking away again. “I confronted him, yes,” she spoke in a low, measured tone. “And I would do it again. If your bride abandoned you, Your Grace, you only have yourself to blame.”
“That iscategoricallynot true.” His anger sharpened, honed by days of poor sleep and hollow, gut-clenching stress. In one fell swoop, he had lost near everything, and all of London was ablaze with chatter about what he had done to this ‘poor’ girl.
His fists clenched at the thought. “Do you know what is being said about you? They are saying that you must have been my mistress and that I must have gotten you with child and abandoned you.” At the way her face paled, he gave an almost incredulous laugh. “Would you truly ruin your own reputation in an attempt to ruin mine?”
“You ruined me first,” she whispered.
“Alice!” Lady Timberley turned to him with an apology written all over her face. “You must excuse her, Your Grace. I can’t think what has gotten into her—she must know that she has no acquaintance with you, or—”
“Do you truly not remember?” Miss Ravenshire demanded. “No, you have not gotten me with child, but you are the reason I am here like this, in this condition.” She waved a hand at her leg. “You are the reason my parents are dead!”
The words settled around them then, and he stared at her in newfound horror… and a bizarre fascination.
True, he had thought he’d recognized something about her, and the name Ravenshire had sparked a memory, but he had not connected the name to that of the family he had crashed into.
Brexton.
That had been the title of the couple he had killed.
Viscount and Viscountess Brexton.
He had even attended their funeral, sick with shame and grief.
Their daughter, Miss Alice Ravenshire, had not been in attendance.
He had seen her only once, when he had gone to apologize to her after the funeral, when she had looked through him with empty eyes and told him to never come near her again.
