Chapter Eight
The face of Gerrit’s dead wife rose like the specter she truly was. “How many men?” he snarled.
Lady Kathryn went from mortified to mulish in the blink of an eye. “How many lovers have you had?”
He ignored her impertinent question. “How many?” he repeated icily.
She held his gaze for a long moment before wavering and once again lowering her gaze. “One.”
“What is his name?”
This time when she looked up, her eyes blazed. “I refuse to tell you about such a—a private matter.”
Gerrit’s fury licked across his skin like flames, but he kept his voice low and level.
“I belong to a number of clubs, Lady Kathryn. Although I do not visit them with any frequency, I would prefer to know who your lover is rather than be forced to wonder and guess at his identity every time I look another man in the face.”
“And will you tell me all the names of your lovers, as well?”
Gerrit abruptly leaned toward her and was pleased when she recoiled from whatever she saw on his face. “I have taken no lovers from among the ton so you will not have to worry about encountering them,” he hissed, holding her gaze. “Now. I would have your lover’s name, my lady.”
“He is nobody you know.”
“How can you be so sure of that?”
“Because he is a footman,” she retorted, her face a flame.
Nausea rose within him as if he’d been kicked in the ballocks. That he—Gerrit Van Draak—would likely be forced to marry a woman who fucked her servants was so ironic that he almost laughed.
If there was one attitude that he loathed, it was the predatory behavior so many of his peers exhibited toward their social subordinates. And now, evidently, he was going to marry one of that ilk.
“When did you last fornicate with this man?”
Her jaw dropped at the word fornicate, but she recovered quickly and fixed him with a look of pure loathing.
Was she going to tell him to go to hell?
What would Gerrit do if she refused to answer?
Would he do the honorable thing and accept another man’s castoff?
Would he endure a marriage to yet another woman who hated him and bedded every man in sight whenever his back was turned?
The voice of Gerrit’s long-dead father filled his mind, the words coming back to him from almost twenty years ago, the night that Gerrit first learned he was to wed Christina.
It does not matter that you have never met her.
You are like me, Gerrit; you are incapable of that emotion other men call love.
The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can get on with the business of marriage as it will be—not as others tell you it should be.
And the sooner Christina is made aware of the situation, the better it will be for both of you.
Her duty is to give you an heir. Once she does that, both of you will be free to live your own lives free of one another.
It is what I did with your mother, and it will have to be the same with any woman you take to wife.
Tell her your intentions in plain words and tell it to her before she can develop unreasonable expectations of you.
Gerrit experienced a nasty niggling in his belly as he recalled his sire’s unpalatable but undeniably accurate advice. Advice that he had rejected at the time, naively hoping he could find happiness with Christina, despite his father’s warning.
He knew now, after the disaster of his first marriage, that the old duke had been painfully astute with his advice.
Gerrit was far too ugly, awkward, and strange for any woman to love, or even like, so he should take what he could get—hopefully an heir this time—and look for physical pleasure with a woman who was paid to welcome him into her bed.
But even as he opened his mouth to give his prospective wife carte blanche to copulate with whomever she wished, a strange sensation joined the anger simmering inside him and it took him a long moment to identify it. Good God… Was that jealousy he felt?
He was not immune to the unpleasant emotion—he was as human as the next man, despite a common consensus to the contrary—but it was not a feeling he’d experienced since the early days of his first marriage. That had been a natural reaction, albeit short-lived.
But why in the hell would he be jealous of Lady Kathryn Bellamy, a woman he did not know and did not want to marry?
The illogical reaction distracted him for a moment, and he could only stare, too perplexed by his disorganized thoughts to speak.
For reasons beyond his ken, the thought of a marriage of convenience rankled, and rankled badly.
It made no sense. Less than a day ago he had been resolved to enter that exact sort of union with Lady Mariska. So, why would—
“More than five years have passed, so you needn’t fear I am with child.”
Gerrit blinked, needing a moment to recall what she meant.
“I am speaking the truth,” she said, evidently mistaking his confusion for suspicion.
Five years ago? Chatham had said she was two-and-twenty, which would mean she’d been scarcely more than a girl when she’d bedded her footman. And there had been no other man since?
Why did he find that so hard to believe? After all, she had been the one to mastermind this blasted kissing contest.
“Nobody else in five years,” he repeated skeptically.
“Yes. That is the truth,” she said through gritted teeth.
Gerrit remained silent and stared, which generally served to get most people talking.
It worked this time, too.
***
Dulverton regarded her with cold, reptilian eyes, their iciness all the more noticeable given how very hot Katie’s face felt. He dwarfed the chair he sat in, his arrogant fury cloaking his massive shoulders and making him look even bigger and more striking.
Yes, Katie decided that striking was a far more accurate word for him than ugly, which was too simple.
Dulverton’s looks struck a person like an axe.
In fact, she did not have to stretch her imagination at all to imagine his huge hand wielding an axe, stripped to the waist with his near-white hair plaited and hanging down his back, his powerful torso glistening with—
“Lady Kathryn!”
Katie jerked her gaze from his broad chest—garbed in an exquisite coat rather than sweat and the blood of his vanquished foes—to his harsh, austere face. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace?”
His scowl deepened and he cut her a look of such loathing that Katie knew he was going to say something offensive.
“I asked if this footman is still in your employ?” He regarded Katie as if she were vermin—the same way that she would look at him if he had confessed to bedding a housemaid.
She had always believed there should be a special circle of Hell reserved for masters—or mistresses—who took advantage of their servants and now she had plunked herself right in the middle of that vile cohort.
Katie hated that she’d lied, but she could hardly tell him the truth, could she?
Even if she ignored the story Andrew had told her about Dulverton’s lethal skills and willingness to duel, the proud set of the duke’s jaw and the barely restrained savagery in his frigid gaze persuaded her that the first thing he would do if he encountered her prior lover—Lord Jasper Staines—at one of his clubs was call him out.
He might not banish Katie to the Continent as he had his last wife and her lover since her affair had happened before their marriage, but he might very well kill or maim Jasper to send a message.
By lying about the identity of her lover, Katie had likely saved Jasper’s life. Not that the scheming weasel deserved it.
“I would like an answer. Now,” Dulverton snapped, his abrupt, dictatorial tone setting her back up.
Rein in your temper! This man will likely be your husband.
Katie ignored the wise warning. “He is not my footman; he never was. He was a servant at my aunt’s house but no longer works for her.
So, you needn’t tease yourself about ever seeing him again.
” His look of loathing bit into her like a spur.
“Unless you frequently encounter footmen at your clubs, that is.”
He stared at her with his unnervingly pale eyes, the pupils narrowed to pinpricks of displeasure, his lips compressed into a thin, disapproving line.
Katie did not blame him one bit. But that didn’t mean she had to like being examined as if she were dung.
“Why are you looking at me that way, Your Grace?” she demanded.
“What else am I supposed to do?” the duke snarled. “Throw a parade to celebrate your woefully catholic taste in rutting with a servant? Award you a medal to—”
“Enough, Your Grace!” She crossed her arms, as if that could protect her from his stinging derision. “You have made your point and then some.”
His jaw flexed and, to her astonishment, he nodded. “You are correct. I apologize for my incivility.”
Katie ignored his apology. “You asked me if I was being forced into this?”
He frowned at the change of subject but nodded.
“I am not, but I know you are.”
He did not try to deny it.
Katie told herself to be grateful for his honesty no matter how much it stung. “You have done your duty by coming here today and offering for me. I absolve you of any responsibility toward me.”
“But I have not offered for you,” he pointed out pedantically.
“Rest assured that I will tell everyone I rejected your offer. Nobody but the two of us will ever be the wiser and we can go our separate ways.
He rubbed the back of his neck, his gaze distant. A moment later his pale eyes sharpened and he sighed. “Scandal is attached to both our names. The only way to vanquish it is to marry.”
She dearly wanted to bring up the last scandal in his life and point out how that seemed to have miraculously disappeared. But even she was not that cruel. “It seems extreme to marry a person you loathe merely to avoid damage to one’s reputation.”