Page 2 of A Wounded Duke's Passion
The corridor, usually so airy and open, seemed suddenly too small and constricting. She lifted the skirts of her gown and hurried into her bedroom. Elizabeth, her lady’s maid, wascarefully arranging Bridget’s walking gown for her promenade with Rose. The slight, fair-haired maid curtsied at her entrance.
“My lady.”
“Elizabeth,” Bridget said.
The maid cast her a puzzled look, doubtlessly noting Bridget’s dour mood. She was too polite to comment on it, however.
Bridget sighed. “We should make haste if I hope to meet Rose at the agreed-upon time.”
That was untrue, but Bridget could not bear being in the house any longer, having heard what she just had.
***
“I can scarcely believe it!” exclaimed Rose, her blue eyes wide and her face scandalized. “How can your father even consider such a proposal?”
Bridget had taken a coach to the park to meet Rose, and the journey had given her ample time to think through the conversation several times over. As loath as Bridget was to admit it, the Marquess of Thornton made a reasonable argument. She would have to wed eventually.
However, her father had always promised her a love match. Surely, it was not too much for her to expect him to honor his word? Of course, there was the matter of the debt and her spent dowry, but if Bridget let herself think too much on those, she felt as if she might drown beneath the injustice of her situation.
“He is desperate,” Bridget said, sighing. “There is no other explanation.”
“But your dowry!” exclaimed Rose, her hands twisting anxiously at her lilac skirts. “Oh, Bridget! What shall you do?”
“I know not,” Bridget replied. “What do you think I ought to do?”
The two ladies walked in silence for a long moment, Elizabeth and Francesca, Rose’s lady’s maid, following at a respectable distance to serve as chaperones. After several moments, Rose sighed forlornly.
“I do not know. If I were in your situation, I would feel so helpless. What choice do you have?”
“I suppose I could refuse,” Bridget said, “but if I truly do have no dowry, the marquess is right. Father will receive no better offer for me.”
“It is horrid,” Rose said. “Perhaps you have some relation who may be able to help you?”
Bridget suspected Rose was thinking about her own guardian, the wealthy and aloof Duke of Hamilton. After the death of her father, Rose had become the Duke’s ward; her mother Lady Victoria still lived, but she had not yet emerged from grieving. To the horror of the ton, Lady Victoria had chosen not to wed an aristocrat. Instead, she had married a baron’s fourth son, a solicitor, and had vanished from the ton until her husband’s death. She emerged to give Rose her first Season before vanishing again.
Bridget did not think that Rose and the duke were very close; they were only distantly related and, prior to the death of Rose’s father, had rarely seen one another. There was no denying the Duke of Hamilton’s wealth or the dowry that he had for Rose.
Bridget looked at her friend’s fine gown, a bolt of anxiety curling in her chest. Did her own father dig them deeper into debt each day by purchasing all those fine things that the ton expected? How much damage had Bridget’s own wardrobe for the Season already caused?
“I doubt it,” Bridget said, answering Rose’s query. “Our family is small anyway, and if there were such a relation, I am certain that my father would have considered that before Lord Thornton’s proposal.”
“It has not been settled yet,” Rose said. “Your father has not even spoken of it to you. Perhaps he will decide not to do as the marquess suggests.”
Bridget wrapped her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. “Perhaps.”
Her father hadn’t sounded as though he intended to launch a very spirited defense, though. Bridget tried to think about what good might come from the arrangement. If she wed the Marquess of Thornton, her father’s debts would be forgiven, and Bridget would likely be able to secure a dowry for her sister. At least one of them could find a love match.
“Or maybe the marquess will decide that he does not wish to wed you,” Rose said optimistically. “He could marry any lady in the ton and receive an heir. There is no particular reason for it to be you.”
“I suspect he wants a young lady,” Bridget said, heat rising to her face. “I realize I may sound disreputable in saying so, but I dread the thought of marrying a man I do not love. Of being intimate with a man I do not love.”
Many ladies of the ton might have blanched at such a candid mention of marital intimacy, but not Rose. Her friend only gave Bridget a pitying look. “I am terribly sorry. It sounds dreadful.”
“I wish my father would realize that,” Bridget replied, “but I am sure that he cares little for how I feel.”
“I am sure there are many lords whose daughters would willingly marry such a man,” Rose said. “He does not need to bargain to wed an unwilling lady.”
Bridget shook her head. “No, but if the Marquess of Thornton retracts his offer, that will not remedy my father’s financial situation. I will still have no dowry and no marriage prospects.”
