Page 2 of Stolen By the Cruel Duke
“Who would make this up?” Rosalie asked. “Could it have been one of Father’s enemies?”
“Perhaps…” Violet looked thoughtful. “But why target Iris? She has never done anything to warrant such an attack.” She fixed her serious gaze on Iris. “Unless… you don’t have an understanding with the Duke of Eavestone, do you?”
Iris’s stomach clenched, as it so often did when Violet looked at her like this. Of the three sisters, Violet alone looked like their father. She had the Viscount Carfield’s dark hair and severe features, and sometimes, when she stared at Iris accusatorily, Iris swore she was looking at her father. But she knew that Violet’s looks masked the kind, sensitive girl she was underneath, and who was as far from their father in personality as was possible.
Still, it unnerved her.
“Of course, I don’t,” Iris said, stiffening at the suggestion. “The man is known far and wide as one of the most dangerous and ruthless men in England. We have never even spoken. He rarely attends balls, and he certainly doesn’t court spinsters.”
All three girls were quiet for a moment as they contemplated this. Iris was starting to feel some of the shock wearing off. But as the reality of the situation began to sink in, fear also overtook her.
What will happen now? Will I be forced to marry the Duke of Eavestone? Or, worse still, what if he refuses to offer marriage, permanently ruining my and my sisters’ reputations? And, Oh God, what will Father say?
Iris’s stomach churned. Their father would not take kindly to a rumor impugning his daughter’s virtue. Nor would he believe that she had done nothing wrong—not after a lifetime of finding fault with everything she did. His punishment, she knew, would be swiftly delivered and brutal.
A knock sounded at the door, and the butler entered. Mr. Jones’s expression was grave.
“Miss Crampton, your father requests your presence in his library. Immediately.”
Iris looked around at her sisters. They wore identical expressions of horror.
“Do you think he knows?” Rosalie hissed.
Violet said nothing, but her eyes seemed to be saying what Iris was thinking—It can’t be a coincidence.
Rising on shaky legs, Iris followed Mr. Jones out of the drawing room and down the staircase that led to the ground floor of their London townhouse.
Outside the Viscount’s library, the butler knocked.
“Enter,” Lord Carfield’s voice boomed from inside.
Iris took a deep breath, then walked through the door.
The room was large but dim. Heavy curtains had been drawn over the windows, which otherwise would have looked out over the hustle and bustle of Grosvenor Square. Instead of natural light, her father’s library was lit with candles, which cast an eerie glow over the bookshelves, the dark mahogany furnishings, and the Viscount himself, who was seated at his desk on the far side of the room beneath a larger-than-life portrait of himself. The portrait was part of what added to the chilling atmosphere of the room, as two versions of her father leered down at her as she approached him.
Iris curtsied. “You wanted to see me, Father?”
Now that she was in the proverbial lion’s den, she felt her courage rising. It was always like this with her father.
I will never let him see me afraid. Certainly not of him.
Whenever she was in his presence, she met his ferocity with a determination she had been cultivating since the age of thirteen, when her mother had left her and her sisters alone and unprotected.
I have to be strong, the way Mother couldn’t be. For Violet, Rosalie, and me.
So, as she approached her father, Iris kept her head held high and her shoulders squared, and she did not once look away from his cold stare.
“A rumor has been circulating about you,” her father began, his voice low and gravelly. Steepling his hands in front of him, he surveyed her with the cold, dark eyes that reminded her so much of Violet’s. “A rumor about you and the Duke of Eavestone.”
“It isn’t true,” Iris said at once. She’d been preparing this speech on the way down the stairs, and now she rushed to get it out before he could begin making accusations. “I would never dishonor myself or our family name, nor would I do anything to put my sisters’ futures at risk. You must know this, Father. I have only ever looked out for them, and I wouldn’t be so foolish as to throw that away for a man, especially not one like the Duke of?—”
The Viscount held up a hand to silence her, and she stopped speaking at once. Her father, she was well aware, did not tolerate disobedience of any kind. She was surprised, however, that hedidn’t look angry. She’d been expecting rage, but instead, he was watching her placidly, even with some amusement.
“I know the rumor isn’t true,” he said, and she felt a small flicker of relief. Almost immediately, however, it was extinguished. “After all, I am the one who sold it to the papers.”
It took all of Iris’s good breeding to keep herself from gasping. Shock reverberated through her, and she felt as if the ground had opened up beneath her feet.
“You sold it to them?” she repeated faintly. “But… why? Why would you risk our good name like that?”
