Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“Your Grace, where are you going?” the butler’s startled voice pursued Adrian across the icy stable yard, the troughs frozen over.
The stablemaster had already been instructed to saddle Adrian’s horse, while he had gone back inside to fetch a few things that he hoped might help his cause. Indeed, the stablemaster had been struck dumb for several minutes at the request, before he had hastened to obey.
“I am headed south,” Adrian replied, as his horse was brought out.
Jarvis barely stifled a yelp, his hand clamped across his mouth. “And why, pray tell, are you doing that? Are we not expecting the Duke of Delamere soon?”
“Send a messenger to Roseby’s,” Adrian instructed. “Tell Richard that I am unlikely to be back in time, but I can welcome him at Twelfth Night instead.”
In truth, he had forgotten all about his promise to host Richard for New Year’s Eve. Still, he could explain everything to his friend when they next saw each other. For once, Adrian might actually have a story of his own to tell.
“As for where I am going, that is none of your business,” Adrian continued, pausing before he added, “But I am going to see Valerie. I have no doubt that you and Mrs. Mullens conspired to whisper outside the rose garden door yesterday, but what you said… I have listened. I thank you for bringing me to my senses.”
Jarvis’ eyes widened. “You heard that?”
“Do not pretend, Jarvis. It does not become you.” Adrian climbed up into the saddle. “Take my thanks and be grateful that I have not cast the pair of you out of your employment for such a brazen maneuver. Fortunately for the two of you, I am a former military man; I appreciate a brazen maneuver.”
With a smile that seemed to shock Jarvis, Adrian turned his horse and squeezed his thighs, urging the fine beast into a lope that would hopefully get him to Valerie before he lost her for good.
“You will do as you are told,” Gregory snapped as he paced back and forth across the drawing room floor. “How many times must I repeat myself?”
Seated awkwardly on the settee, Valerie could not prevent her eyes from rolling. “Am I to say nothing? Am I to be mute now?” she replied, though it would get her into trouble. “I was merely asking why I need to meet this gentleman when I shall meet him in six days’ time anyway.”
Since her return, she had learned that her father had stretched the truth of when the wedding would take place.
Or, perhaps, the groom had altered the date.
It was unclear but, either way, the additional time had not been the relief it should have been.
Instead, it felt like torture, worsening the nerves, the dread, the utter devastation of it all.
“Because he has asked,” her father retorted sharply.
“What if he takes one look at me and changes his mind?” Valerie taunted, half-wishing it would happen.
Gregory halted so abruptly that his shoe squeaked on the parquet. “Why would you say such a thing?”
“Oh, I do not know, perhaps because you have told me all my life that I am worth nothing and will amount to nothing; I am graceless, devoid of elegance, and have nothing about me that could tempt any man into marriage,” she replied, all the insults tripping off her tongue with ease.
“Indeed, I remember you once saying that I could be pretty in a poorly lit ballroom.”
But there is a man in the north who once called me ‘perfection.’ Although she had agreed to follow through with this repugnant wedding, she would never forget Adrian’s compliment, when his gaze had wandered over the contours of her naked body.
She would never forget a single thing about her time there, though it already felt like a dream.
“This is why I have been forced to arrange a match,” her father muttered, resuming his endless back and forth. “If you were more pleasant, you could have found a husband for yourself and saved me the trouble.”
“I am but two-and-twenty,” she reminded him. “Break this engagement, and I shall see what I can do.”
He shot her a dark look. “You will be on your best behavior when the duke arrives.” He gestured to the drawing room door. “If you embarrass me in the slightest, your siblings shall go to bed without any dinner or supper, and there shall be no breakfast for them in the morning either.”
Valerie glared back at him, filled with such loathing for the man that she seriously contemplated taking her teacup and launching it at his head. She detested him with every fiber of her being, and then some.
“Tell me, Father, were you born cruel or did something happen in your youth that twisted you?” she said casually. “Were you ignored as a child? Is that it?”
“Enough!” Gregory snarled, eyes blazing with the same fury as when he had slapped her. “I should have ignored you as a child. Indeed, there is rarely a day that goes by where I do not wish that I had sent you to the orphanage instead of your sister. Why, I should have sent both of you!”
Valerie’s hand flew to her chest, as if he had physically struck her. To have kept such a despicable secret was one thing, but to speak so mockingly of an event that had separated two sisters—twins, no less—was quite another.
“You would not have had to send either of us away if you had not squandered every penny you had, only able to ‘afford’ one of us,” she seethed, unconsciously reaching for the teacup on the table before her.
“Is it not the measure of a man, that he should be able to provide for his family? What have you provided, other than misery, empty coffers, and children that cannot stand you?”
Gregory whipped around, bristling with rage. The feeling was entirely mutual.
“If your future husband was not arriving at any moment, I would—” The threat was interrupted by the gardener, who was also the butler, the footman, the stablemaster, and anything else that Gregory needed to be.
He could only afford two servants, though Valerie suspected that the housekeeper remained more for the children than her measly income.
“The duke has arrived, My Lord,” the gardener said.
Gregory expelled a sharp breath and straightened his posture, his fingertips pinching his cravat to adjust it. “And not a moment too soon.” He cast one last glare at Valerie. “Send him in.”
“Yes, My Lord.” The gardener backed out of the room as if Gregory were a king instead of the country’s lowliest, most wretched baron.
A few staunchly silent moments later, and the door opened again.
Valerie sat up straighter, her heart in her throat as she stared at the doorway, waiting to see the face of the man she would be chained to for the rest of her life.
Legally speaking. She imagined some old and desperate creature who had been refused by every other lady in the ton, regardless of his station and fortune.
So, when Adrian walked in, windswept and unwaveringly handsome, she could not swallow the gasp of shock that hissed from her throat.
He is here! He came to save me!
The hope was fierce and immediate, surging through her like the bliss that he had conjured with his touch and his tongue. She could not have tempered it if she had tried, despite knowing it was probably foolish to believe she could avoid the destiny her father had planned for her.
“Who the devil are you?” Gregory asked bluntly, a sneer upon his face.
Adrian leveled a steely glare at the man, while a little thrill beetled down Valerie’s spine. She had never seen anyone discipline her father before, and she had a feeling she was about to witness something exquisite. After all, Adrian could not abide rudeness.
“Speak to me in so coarse a manner again, and I will remove your tongue,” he said, his voice as cold as the wintry world he had left. “I am here to speak with Valerie, not you.”
The older man visibly floundered, his mouth opening and closing in obvious outrage, yet unable to muster a single coherent word.
“Be very careful of your next utterance,” Adrian warned.
Gregory’s eyes bulged. “How dare you! I am the Baron of Gramfield, and this is my house. I will not be spoken to like that in my own—”
“I am the Duke of Norwood,” Adrian interrupted brusquely, “and you are trying my patience. Leave, so that I may speak to your daughter.”
“A duke?” The older man’s face clouded over in confusion. “But… how do you know my daughter? Why are you here? I am afraid that an important guests is due at any moment, so this really—”
“Leave,” Adrian growled, taking a step toward Valerie’s father.
Delighted, and a little anxious, Valerie observed as her father’s head tilted up to take in the full measure of Adrian’s height.
The duke towered over Gregory and, paired with the grim expression on Adrian’s face, it was clear that the older man knew he could not fight this visitor with words or strength.
It would be over quickly if they did fight.
Discreetly, she let her gaze travel over those broad shoulders and that muscular chest, her fingertips tingling with the memory of touching Adrian’s bare skin.
The heat of him, the texture of his scars, the way that just a look could steal her breath and make her body yearn for him.
“Well, be quick… please,” Gregory muttered. “I shall send Mrs. Oakley in to chaperone.”
“And tea,” Adrian replied. “I have ridden almost the length of the country, and I find myself parched.”
His summery blue eyes fell upon Valerie at last, and though she was trying not to get her hopes up, she felt them rise anyway. Christmas had come and gone, but perhaps her miracle had just arrived.