Prologue
“Your Grace,” Hopkins, the butler, called through the door. “You have a guest to see you.”
Maxwell Warren, the Duke of Marrowhurst, surveyed the Scotch in his crystal Glencairn glass, swirling the amber liquid contemplatively. So lost in his thought was he that he’d barely heard the knock on his library door.
Maxwell clicked his tongue impatiently. This was the eve of his wedding; he knew of no one who would interrupt him.
Or so he had thought.
“Send him in,” he said, putting his Scotch back on the small table before him. It was a cold spring, and the embers of the fire still glowed in the hearth.
The door opened, and a distinctly unmasculine figure stepped into the room. Hopkins followed, looking decidedly disgruntled.
“Lady Thalia,” he said, attempting to recover his dignity. “Here to see His Grace.”
The lady dipped into a hurried curtsy. Maxwell rose, hardly aware of what he was doing.
Why is Lady Thalia here? Alone? Unchaperoned? On the eve of our marriage?
At the sight of her, all disheveled curls and flushed cheeks, his libido rose in a rather disconcerting way. If she were here for a pre-wedding tumble, she would find herself disappointed.
Though he could not deny he was tempted.
This was the first time they had met, and he had not expected such a seductively pretty lady. All soft curves and shuddering breaths.
“Your Grace,” she gasped. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“As though I had a choice in the matter.” He glanced at Hopkins. “That will be all.”
Hopkins did his best not to react, but Maxwell could see the disappointment cross his face. “Yes, sir.” He inclined his head and closed the library door on his way out.
Maxwell folded his arms. No matter how pretty the girl might be, she had still come to his home unheralded.
“Lady Thalia.”
“Your Grace.” She curtsied.
His eyes roamed over her figure, taking in every soft, feminine line of hers.
“Since no introductions are needed, I shall skip the niceties. What are you doing in my house?” he asked.
She raised her head, lifting her chin as though she half expected him to strike her.
“Your Grace,” she said dramatically, “please do not insist on marrying me.”
Maxwell blinked. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He had not insisted on anything; her father had been the one to arrange things.
“Insist?” He raised a brow. “I have not initiated any part of the proceedings.”
Her tongue moistened her lips, and he found his attention drawn to that small motion. That small kick of lust upon seeing her grew, and he frowned in irritation. Really, this was quite out of hand. Not what he had expected or hoped for from a marriage at all.
“Then you will have no issues with telling my father that you no longer wish to go through with it.”
His fingers tightened slightly on his arms. “If you have some concern about me, my lady, then you might do me the honor of bringing it to my attention.”
Those pretty cheeks of hers flushed still further. “This has nothing to do with you, Your Grace, but I must inform you that at no point did I consent to this match. My father insisted on pressing ahead despite my objections, and so I was left with no choice but to approach you directly.”
She took another large gulp of air, as though articulating this had taken all her energy. Although this declaration came as a surprise—and no small inconvenience—he had to admire her spirit in coming here at all.
He motioned to his armchair. “Sit,” he said curtly. “You seem out of sorts.”
Her fingers gripped her skirts. “Please, Your Grace. You must—”
“Take a drink before you go.” He poured another Scotch and handed it to her, observing her again.
She truly looked like a work of art, as though fine hands had carved her in the image of Eve, the first woman.
The perfect woman.
If he were to marry her, she would no doubt prove a distraction. And one he was unwilling to countenance. Desire had no place in a marriage; she had one purpose and one only: to provide him with heirs.
Anything else would be a source of irritation.
“Please,” she said, looking at him through her lashes. “I know it is unfortunate timing, but—”
“If you had so many objections to the match, my lady, you might have approached me before now to make such a request of me.”
Her eyes flashed. “If I had the ability, I would have done so, Your Grace.”
As much as he admired her spirit, he despised her presumption. “And what will you offer in exchange for requesting your father drop the marriage nearly on the day of the wedding?”
“Offer you?” Her hands crossed over her chest. “I have nothing to offer you.”
“Allow me to recapitulate, then.” He paused to think.
“You require me, at significant personal cost, to extract myself from this wedding when it is not generally considered acceptable for a gentleman to break an engagement the very day of the wedding? And you expect me to do so out of the goodness of my heart?”
Long lashes fluttered over defiant chocolate eyes. “I had heard you had no heart, but this… cold-heartedness. Can you truly be so cruel?”
“Ah, so your true motive arrives. If you had heard such terrible things about me, it is a wonder you came all this way by yourself. Foolish too.” He nodded at the glass in her hands. “Drink that.”
“Why, so you might get me drunk?” Her eyes narrowed.
“So, you might be warmed and ready to venture back into his hellish night.” His temper snapped at its leash. He held it back with difficulty.
For all his irritation, he would not go ahead with this marriage if she were adamantly against it. Aside from his inconvenient attraction to her, he would not trap a woman in a loveless marriage if it were not of his choosing.
He may be a cold-hearted monster, but he was not that flavor of cruel.
“I have no intention of keeping you here,” he said, striding to the window. The books felt almost as though they glared at him. “And if you are so fixedly against the match, then I have no desire for an unwilling wife. You have spared yourself that, at least.”
A pause. Then a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Your Grace.”
“In the future, I would recommend you do not travel alone to a gentleman’s house in the night.” He turned back to face her, noting as he did so the delicate way she sipped from the glass. “Not all gentlemen are as honorable as I.”
She made a slight choking sound but raised her head with what appeared to be a valiant effort.
“Indeed not, Your Grace,” she said with some difficulty.
“I shall keep this advice under consideration. But you see, I had no guarantee that I might get this message to you otherwise, as my father would not allow a letter written to you to pass the confines of our house.”
“And yet,” Maxwel said dryly, “you were able to find a way to leave the house yourself.”
Another delicious blush flooded her cheeks.
Yes, it was certainly a good thing that he would not marry her. The last thing he needed was a passionate, intense marriage, and she certainly stirred passion in him.
If he were a different man, and she were not a lady… He’d relish seeing more of that pretty flush of hers.
Fortunately, he was not a different kind of man, and she was a lady, and they were not to be married.
She finished the Scotch and placed the glass down. “Please do not tell my father that I came here.”
“Very well.”
“Or that I requested you break our arrangement.”
He would never have betrayed her in such a way; if her father were the kind of man to disregard her wishes to such an extent, he would not think twice about hurting her.
“I understand,” he said.
She rose and curtsied again. “Then I am indebted to you.”
“That is unnecessary,” he said as she walked to the door. He rang for Hopkins. “Forget that you are indebted to me. You had no wish for marriage; we are even. Do not think on the subject again.”
Her eyes were deep and dark, and almost painfully lovely. Color filled her lips from where she had been chewing them. He did his best to notice neither; he failed in both regards.
“Very well, Your Grace,” she said finally, meeting his gaze in a way that made his stomach clench. Her pupils flared. “I will forget everything about you.”
Maxwell strode into Lord Gilford’s house as the sun rose, ignoring the outraged squawks of the staff, in particular the butler, whom he tasked with raising Lord Gilford from his bed.
This would have been his wedding day; he was not prepared to wait any longer to cancel the event. Lord Gilford could survive without a few hours of sleep.
Although Maxwell had been in dealings with the lord for several weeks, making all the arrangements, he had little love or even respect for the man, and when he entered the small parlor with his cravat askew and his waistcoat shoddily buttoned, Maxwell felt little but irritation.
“Your Grace,” Gilford said, bowing very slightly. As an earl, he was less highly ranked, but evidently thought his age made up for the difference between them. “What brings you to my abode so early in the morning? I have only just retired.”
His breath stank of brandy and wine. Maxwell flinched at the smell of it.
By day, Gilford could be charming, but in this insistence, he was not at his best. The older man swayed a little, still inebriated.
His daughter would have been getting married in a handful of hours, and the man was still drunk.
“I came to inform you that I must break our agreement,” Maxwell said calmly. “I am honored to have been offered the opportunity to marry your daughter, but an alliance between us is impossible.”
Gilford’s chest swelled. “Impossible? My daughter? You cannot end our arrangement now. Everyone knows you are to be married today.”
Maxwell placed a large moneybag on the table. “I understand this is an inconvenience.”
“An inconvenience? This is a bloody disgrace!”
“I’m afraid I will be retiring from London, and I am in no position to take a wife at this time. We can cite family differences.”
Gilford eyed the money. Although he wanted Lady Thalia disposed of in marriage, he was by nature a greedy man. “I require considerable compensation considering the mess this will make of my reputation.”
“Rather more mine than yours.” Maxwell leaned forward and opened the bag, revealing the sovereigns inside. “I trust you will explain to Lady Thalia that I was unable to keep my appointment due to family reasons.”
“Well, I daresay some excuse can be found.” Gilford picked up a sovereign and bit into it as though he were a shrewd street trader. Maxwell contained his disgust as best he could. “Yes, I imagine an excuse can be given. She will endure the humiliation.”
The Earl picked up a handful of coins, then let them trickle back into the bag slowly.
Plink, plink, plink.
“I will put a small notice in the papers today.” His business concluded, and with no desire to remain in Lord Gilford’s company, Maxwell rose.
“And after, I will retire from the city. You will have no reason to see me, and I will not be taking another wife at present, so you need have no concern on that front.”
“A handsome sum,” Gilford muttered. “A handsome sum indeed.” He waved an absent hand. “Yes, do what you must. And of course, Thalia will understand completely. This situation is not her fault.”
Maxwell gave a grim smile. “Not in the slightest.”
“There will be other offers. All I need to do is find someone else willing to take her off my hands… A handsome sum indeed…”
Maxwell did not bid the other man goodbye.
As he strode through the house, he felt a prickling between his shoulder blades, and when he glanced behind him, it was to see a pair of chocolate eyes viewing him from the upper floor.
He touched his hat in her direction, then glimpsed the swishing of draperies as she turned and fled.
He left the house and did not look back.