Chapter Eight #2
“Perhaps your reputation is of no concern to you, but mine is to me, and I daresay your family will care,” he said, not denying his loathing for her.
Katie’s sisters were hardly sticklers for propriety, but none of them would appreciate having her appalling behavior attached to their names.
But was that reason enough to spend the rest of her life shackled to this cold, rude man?
Katie tried to imagine bringing Dulverton to her annual family Christmas celebration—the three weeks each year that she lived for—and knew he would hate it. If he even permitted her to go.
No. She could not do it. She might deserve punishment for what she did, but a lifetime was simply too much. “I still think—regardless of the scandal—that the potential for disaster in such a union outweighs any benefit,” she said, not ungently.
His eyes narrowed.
“I could never be what you expect in a wife,” she babbled on, desperate. “And I am certain you could never make me happy.” As usual, Katie had said more than she’d intended.
But if her words hurt him, he did not show it. “Do you even know what I require? Because you have not asked.”
“It was my understanding that you required a convent-raised Dutchwoman as your bride.”
His eyelids flickered slightly at her snide reply. “What I need is an heir.” No surprise there. Before Katie could respond, he continued. “But I do not need one so badly that I’m willing to marry a woman who will make me wonder who fathered my child.”
She flinched. “I would never—”
“If we were to marry,” he went on, raising his voice to speak over her, “I would expect fidelity until you have produced a son. After that your life is your own as long as you do not bring shame to my name or fill my nursery with bastards.”
Katie was too stunned to speak, which was just as well because Dulverton was not finished.
“I have several houses and you may live in any of them except my London house or my estate in Devon. That still leaves five to choose from. We need never see each other again after you have done your duty.”
Katie had not expected a declaration on bended knee, but neither had she believed Dulverton would lay out a future so bleak and devoid of not only love but affection and companionship.
Swallowing down the emotions that threatened to choke her, she fixed him with a watery glare.
“This is—” She broke off and shook her head, shattered by the brief vision of her future he had just offered.
“Why are you persisting with this? I have already confessed my deepest, most mortifying secret.” Well, not her deepest secret, but Dulverton hardly needed to know the whole of it as there would be no marriage.
“I have absolved you of offering for me. I cannot do anything about the scandal I have already caused, but if you are worried that you might be forced to occupy a ballroom with me in the future you should put your mind at rest. I will retire from society, and you shan’t have to see my face ever again.
” Her eyes burned with unshed tears, but she valiantly managed a sneer.
“At least not unless you develop a fascination for herding goats in the Outer Hebrides.” Katie stood up and all but ran from the room before she broke down and shamed herself.
Somehow, Dulverton was at the door before her, blocking it with his large body.
“What do you want from me?” Katie begged, furious at the quaver in her voice. “I have already relieved you of any responsibility to save my honor. I have apologized. Should I grovel?”
“One of my houses overlooks Cula Bay,” he said in his characteristically haughty tone.
Katie blinked. “What on earth does that mean? Is it some sort of euphemism for—”
“Cula Bay is in Scotland—the Outer Hebrides, to be precise. I keep a yawl there and take it out on occasion and visit the islands.” He cleared his throat and an incongruously delicate pink stain spread over his axe blade-like cheekbones.
“It is entirely possible that I might encounter you and your, er, herd of goats.”
Her jaw dropped. “Did you just make a jest, Your Grace?”
He looked away and rocked back on his heels.
The pose reminded her so much of her brother Doddy when he had been a little boy and had done something naughty that Katie suddenly saw the towering man before her from a different angle.
Yes, he was stiff and awkward and teeth-grindingly arrogant, but perhaps that was not all he was.
He had made a joke, and he’d done so in the midst of a wretched situation that he’d had no hand in creating—or at least not much.
Somewhere inside him lurked a sense of humor.
True, it was probably as wizened and dried up as the turds Doddy’s pet squirrel left all over the house, but it was still a sense of humor.
If he possessed one human characteristic, there very well might be more hidden behind his stony facade and frosty gaze. And that meant there might be somebody to hurt.
Katie sighed. “What are you trying to say, Your Grace?”
“Both our lives are effectively ruined, my lady. We might as well spend them together.”
It wasn’t kindness she saw in his gaze, but neither was it derision or anger. It was the look of a man proposing a cease fire.
“Are—are you certain?” she asked, a hopeful quaver in her voice.
“I am certain. Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife, Lady Kathryn?”
“I—” Her voice broke. Katie cleared her throat, filled her lungs with air, and—for good or for ill—said the words that would change her life forever. “Yes, Your Grace, I will marry you.”