A Duchess’s Offer (The Brooding Dukes #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

“What’s that?” Rosalind Drayton asked her younger sister.

“Oh!” Marianne yelped with clear surprise, just about falling from her seat in the process. “Rose! I did not hear you.” Marianne was hunched over her writing desk and, upon hearing her sister sneaking up behind her, quickly tried to discard whatever it was that she was working on.

“Hard to do when you are so distracted,” Rose said. “Care to tell me what with?”

“Nothing…” Marianne hurriedly opened the drawers to the desk and used her arm to push the writing implements inside. Then she slammed the drawer closed and spun about, flashing an innocent smile. “Nothing at all.”

Rose was standing in the doorway of her sister’s bedroom. She leaned against the frame, folded her arms, and raised a single eyebrow. “It did not seem like nothing.”

“Poetry,” Marianne offered. “Just writing some poetry is all. I would show you, but it is not very good, and I would be so embarrassed.” Her innocent smile grew. “Perhaps when I have improved?”

Rose was not such a fool as to believe what was an obvious lie. Her sister had been behaving strangely for weeks, and it seemed things weren’t destined to change anytime soon.

She does not know that I am more than aware of what she was doing… who she was writing to. Were times different, I might push for her to open up…. But no, I don’t think so. No time. And certainly not today. And Marianne knows why.

“I cannot wait to hear it,” Rose said with a warm smile, as if she believed her sister’s lies.

“As I am certain it will be beautiful. Another time…” She dropped her face as the seriousness of the moment returned to them both.

“Father has sent me to fetch you. He has arrived just now, and we’re expected. ”

Marianne’s face paled. “He… he has? You are certain?”

“Father would not have sent for me otherwise. But, as I have already told you, there is nothing to worry over.” Rose swept into the room, where she took her sister by the arm and helped her to her feet. Marianne’s knees wobbled. “If there were, Father would have told us.”

“You know the complete opposite is true. He is just as likely to keep us in the dark as not. He knows that I do not wish to… that I will not…” She couldn’t even say it out loud, as if saying it would confirm its truth.

“Enough of that.” Rose steered her younger sister toward the door, doing her best to keep Marianne on her feet. “There is no sense in worrying until we know for certain.”

“Please don’t let him do it.” Marianne came to a sudden stop and grabbed hold of Rose with both hands. “He will listen to you, Rose. You know that he will. If you tell him not to do it, he will listen.”

“Maybe. But you know that father can be…” She considered her phrasing. “Stubborn.”

“He will.” Marianne looked pleadingly at Rose, her chin already starting to wobble. “Promise me, Rose, that you will not let him do it. Please.”

It broke Rose’s heart to see.

At twenty-five years of age, she was just five years older than Marianne, but that mattered little. Rose was a girl of nine when their mother died, and this tragedy gave her little choice but to skip her childhood altogether because her family needed it of her.

More than that, her sister needed her, and it had everything to do with their father.

He was not a cruel man. He was not wicked or mean. But that did not mean he was a good father. More concerned with his failed businesses and lame attempts to climb the social ladder than he was with his daughters, Rose had to step in where their mother was no longer able.

Marianne had been just four; she had needed someone to protect her, and that someone certainly wasn’t going to be their father.

So, seeing her sister like this, knowing the cause, and knowing there was nothing that could stop it made this one of the worst moments in Rose’s life.

“Listen to me.” Rose made sure to look at Marianne as she spoke. “I promise you, Marianne, that I will do anything and everything that I can do. You have my word.”

It wasn’t a lie if Rose meant every word of it. Just the fact that she knew there was nothing she could do, that’s what made her feel so awful about saying it.

“Come, Father is waiting for us.” Rose linked her arm with Marianne’s, and the two sisters started across the room.

“The last thing we should do is keep Father waiting. Best that we get this over with, and in a few minutes you and I will be looking back on this moment and laughing at how ridiculous we were.”

“Do you think so?” Marianne’s voice cracked.

“I do,” Rose said without hesitation. Her sister needed to hear it.

Is it so wrong to make her want to feel better? Even if there is nothing I can do.

It was two minutes later when Rose and Marianne presented themselves in the reading room, where their father was waiting for them. As they expected, he was not alone.

“Girls, there you are,” their father, the Viscount of Strathvale, announced as they entered. “Come in, come in.” He hurried across the room and bade them to cross the threshold. “I was about to raise the alarm.”

“Just building suspense, Father,” Rose joked.

Beside her, she felt Marianne tense.

“We were just speaking of you.” Their father looked older than his fifty years, more worn through and just plain tired. But he was dressed finely, wore a little too much of his strong cologne, and his bald patch was almost entirely covered by the way he combed his greying hair.

It was a full effort from their father because the caliber of their guest demanded as much.

“Rosalind, Marianne, may I introduce you to His Grace, the Duke of Thornwall?” Their father turned and bowed at their guest, and while Marianne offered a nervous curtsey, Rose gasped.

The Duke lurked by the window, half-turned to look outside, half-turned to face them.

He did not smile. He did not appear particularly interested in the moment.

Tall and intimidating in stature, physically powerful and intense in presence, his hair was dark, his skin was pure white, and his eyes were piercing green.

Those same eyes swept over the two sisters, sizing them up quickly before pausing on Rose…

He was not at all what she was expecting.

Rose had done her own research into the Duke of Thornwall, of course. A duke at a young age, vastly successful in almost everything he did, extreme wealth earned because of it, while managing to be highly respected by nearly everyone.

The only slights against his name concerned his nature. Serious to a fault, it was said. Detached and emotionless, especially where his businesses are concerned. The type of man who would step on as many toes as he had to, if there was money to be made from it.

Ironically, most whom Rose spoke with seemed to think these traits were a positive thing. The Duke was a perfect example of his pedigree and reputation. So, yes, Rose had a pretty good idea of who she expected to see in that room.

Rose was not prepared for how utterly breathtaking he was. With his sharp jawline, his full lips, his thick chest and arms, it was quite difficult to look away from.

“Miss Rosalind Drayton,” the Duke was looking right at her, his green eyes unblinking, his intense gaze trapping her. She could hear her heart thumping. She could feel her body shaking— until he broke the stare and found Rose’s sister. “And Miss. Marianne Dayton. It is a pleasure.”

Rose blinked herself back into the moment, caught completely off guard by what had happened. Not that she knew what that was exactly.

“Your father was just telling me all about you.” The Duke crossed the room, and Rose’s breath caught, as if there was even a chance he was speaking to her.

He walked right past her, of course, his sights set on Marianne.

He took her hand and gave the back of it a soft kiss.

“If half of what he has told me is true, I will consider myself a lucky man.”

Marianne’s face paled.

Rose snapped herself from whatever spell she had been under It did not matter what the Duke looked like. The only thing that mattered was helping her sister.

“And what did Father tell you of me?” Rose stepped beside the Duke and her sister, right in their faces. “I am sure that even less than half is true.”

The Duke paused, frowning at the interruption, and slowly turned to find Rose standing there, just a little too close. “Excuse me?”

“I am Miss Rosalind Drayton,” she offered her hand for the Duke to take. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Your Grace.”

The Duke eyed the hand. It was subtle, but a smirk tugged at his lips as he did, which he was quick to bury.

“Never mind that.” Rose’s father stepped in beside her and pushed her hand back down. He scowled at her in warning and then smiled at the Duke. “Your Grace, what do you think?”

“What do I think?” the Duke asked as if he didn’t understand the question.

“Of my daughter.” Rose’s father looked between Marianne and the Duke, a hunger in his eyes that Rose knew too well. “Is she not everything I have said?”

It is too late. My father has already agreed, and there is nothing I can do…

“You are an honest man, Lord Strathvale.” The Duke released Marianne’s hand, turned sharply away, and spoke to their father as if she were not there. “She is indeed beautiful. Well done.”

There could be no denying the truth of that, at least. Of the two sisters, Marianne was considered by most to be the more attractive one.

Her hair was golden, her eyes were large, her features innocent and pretty.

Rose, on the other hand… she had never thought of herself as traditionally beautiful, but she was not a lost cause either.

Her hair was darker than her sisters’, her features were sharper, but mostly it was her shoulders that she despised. Far too broad, in her opinion, and certainly enough to turn many men away. Not that she cared.