Page 11 of Married to the Forbidden Duke
That shell of a girl was not the woman before him now. Surely it couldn’t be. Where once her hazel eyes had been devoid of life, now they sparked with angry vengeance. Where her lips had been pale and bloodless, now they were flushed and slightly parted, a temptation he could not even consider giving into.
Sheloathedhim.
He had known it from the moment she’d walked into the church. And yet the reasonwhycame crashing down around him all at once.
“Do you deny it?” she demanded into the silence.
How could he?
“I—” He gave a little shake of his head. “No, I do not.”
“Then you must see why I did what I did, and why I cannot offer you any recompense, not least in the form of marriage!”
His resolve hardened. “On the contrary, Miss Ravenshire, it means I am more responsible for protecting you. And such protectionisnecessary. My acquaintances have discovered your name, and it is being bandied about in conjunction with mine. The rumors are such that you will be ruined if you do not marry me, and my honor will be called into question if I do not marry you.”
He almost had the temptation to laugh at the exaggerated expression of horror that crossed her face. “No doubt that will not be a factor in your decision, but there’s little enough to be done about that. You will be ruined if you do not do this, and I cannot allow that.”
“You no longer have any say in my future,” she hissed, fingers clutching her skirts.
“Perhaps not, but here, I’m afraid I must insist. It is either that, or the financial compensation I came here intending to collect.” He glanced at her uncle. “Equal to three times the amount of the dowry I would have received otherwise.”
Lord Timberley’s face paled still further. The man had very little backbone, and no doubt he didn’t have the money to easily spend for this. And particularly not when marriage was being offered.
For Frederick, marriage made a particularly sick kind of sense. A way of making up for the terrible sin he had committed.
He could not bring the former viscount and viscountess back from the dead, but he could make their daughter a Duchess. He could give her a life of comfort and stability.
Not the life, perhaps, he would have chosen for himself. And having her around as a reminder of his guilt would be a constant torment. But he deserved no less.
As a way to atone, he would endure it.
She shook her head jerkily. “I will not marry you.”
“I am afraid, Alice,” her uncle said wearily, “there is no other choice.”
Alice felt as though she was trapped underwater as she watched the Duke and her uncle draw up the terms of her marriage. She had a respectable, if not large, dowry, and that was easily enough settled on the Duke.
“I will draw up marriage settlements, of course,” the Duke said with a languid flick of his hand. “If anything were to happen to me, she would retain her dowry and inheritance in full.”
How generous of you, she thought with so much bitterness, it bubbled up inside her. She wanted to scream and shout, but her aunt had a hand clamped on her arm.
The mention of money as compensation had been enough to loosen her uncle’s tongue and commit her to a marriage she would rather die than enter. Things were tight enough with Harriet about to embark on their London Season.
All the way through, Alice expected the Duke to mention something about her leg making her unsuitable for a bride, and to perhaps demand more compensation for that alone. At the time of her accident, she had been courted by another gentleman—a Lord Billingsgate, who had the benefit of being young and handsomeandwealthy. But when he’d seen the damage the accident had wrought, he had dropped her faster than a hot coal.
In his eyes, she had become worthless.
But to her surprise, the Duke did not mention her handicap. He made no mention of her limp, nor her stick. Instead, though she sensed his anger, he approached everything from a brisk, businesslike sense. Her uncle, she knew, appreciated that about him.
Alice did not.
She would rather he had shouted at her. Proved himself to be the one at fault, rather than her. Not for the first time, she wished she had been less impulsive. Yes, she had wanted to ruin his marriage, but she had not wantedthis.
She had not thought the Duke would find her. And if he did—a possibility she had been foolish to discount—she had not thought he would want her hand as a form of repayment.
Yet his motives did make sense.
She had read the scandal papers. She knew the world thought he had not done his duty by her; the only way of repairing that damage was to marry her.
