Chapter Three #2
“Why are you here?” she blurted out, wincing at her rudeness. “I mean, you don’t even seem to like Lord Canterbury.”
“I don’t,” he admitted, picking up his spoon and turning it in his fingers as he assessed its design.
She couldn’t quite look away from the shape of his hands.
Strong, blunt fingers, veins slightly raised, a scar across one knuckle.
Masculine hands in a way she had never encountered before, but strangely elegant at the same time. “His first wife was my sister.”
“I heard that you were brothers.”
“In a manner of speaking. Certainly not of blood.” The duke finally dipped his spoon into the soup and brought it to his mouth.
All around them, the conversations continued, but she felt as though they were trapped in a separate bubble; all she could see or hear was the duke.
The sardonic little smile that twisted his mouth, no dimples to be seen, and the way his throat bobbed as he swallowed.
She had never looked at a man in such close detail before, and now she found things she had never noticed.
The prominence of his Adam’s apple, and the rigid tendons that stood out on the side of his neck as he drew in a deep breath.
Turmoil boiled in his eyes for a second—black as pitch, deep as tar, sucking her in.
“Their marriage was a short one, and not particularly happy. My father had died shortly beforehand, so I granted them permission to marry.”
“You were older?”
“No. She was the elder by a year, but she was not yet at majority, and I became the duke upon my father’s death.”
How strange a dynamic that must have been. Gwen had younger brothers, and she could never imagine them giving her permission to marry. The eldest, Harry, was recently fifteen and had turned pompous with it.
“I was nineteen,” the duke said, smiling slightly at her expression.
Her age. “Not a boy, but certainly not a man. She told me this was what she wanted, and I didn’t feel as though I could deny her.
” His expression hardened as he glanced back at Lord Canterbury. “In retrospect, I ought to have done.”
Gwen reached for her own soup spoon. “Was he cruel to her?”
“I suspect I will never know the specifics, but he was certainly indifferent.” His mouth thinned. “He would ruin you without a thought if he had the chance, believe me. Your family is not prominent enough to oppose him, and he has no care for the fate of others he deems lesser.”
Gwen’s shoulders stiffened at the slight against her family. Admittedly, they were not especially wealthy or influential, and she had not supposed she had a real chance of marrying an earl, but he had no right to say so.
His dark gaze slid over her expression. “I offended you. Forgive me.”
“My father may not have a title, but that does not make him a lesser man.”
“I never said it did. Merely that your father’s relative lack of influence means that Canterbury would have no particular compunction in seducing his daughter.”
“Fortunately for us all, he would not be successful in that endeavor,” she said, wrinkling her nose at the very prospect.
The duke half-smiled. “Perhaps not. But he does not take well to rejection—he has rarely been denied.” There was no sign of that elusive amber in his eyes now. “Can you keep a secret, Miss Summers?”
Something warm slid through her stomach, though it made no sense. “I am excellent with secrets, Your Grace.”
“I have no doubt.” He dipped his spoon back into the soup. “Lord Canterbury owes me money. A great deal. And he is not, at present, in a position where he can repay me.”
Gwen’s jaw dropped for the second time that night. “You are that wealthy?”
“Of course.” The duke’s lips twitched. “Shockingly rich, in fact.”
“Which is why Lord Canterbury came to you for a loan?”
“Precisely. He thought that because he married my sister, I would have some reservations about demanding repayment.” The amusement slid from his face, leaving something cold and deadly in its place. “He was mistaken.”
“Is that why you’re here?” Gwen asked in a whisper. “To call in his debts?”
“I’m here because he invited me, no doubt in an attempt to stay my hand.”
“Will it work?”
That ruthlessness did not leave the duke’s eyes. “No.”
As Gwen had suspected. “Will he lose this house?”
“Almost certainly.”
Gwen took another mouthful of soup and swallowed as she thought.
Lord Canterbury had thrown this house party as somewhat of a matchmaking scheme, and he had invited the Duke of the duke along.
To appease his brother-in-law with a potential bride?
So far, he seemed to have shown no interest in any of the other young ladies at all.
As for his interest in her—
Well, she doubted he would have had any if it were not for their first meeting.
She forced it from her mind.
“Do you need the money?” she asked.
“Is that all that matters?” His gaze found hers, and she had that strange sensation again of her chest being too tight to breathe. “I should let him bleed me dry because I have a lot of blood to give? Not very charitable of you.”
“I just wondered why you are calling in his debts now if it will ruin him?”
The duke took a long drink of wine. “Is ruination not the point?” he asked, more to himself than to her.
“So this is revenge?”
“In a manner of speaking. And to prevent him from marrying again. I will not allow him to do to another woman what he did to my sister.”
A strange, unsettling feeling erupted in Gwen’s stomach. A sort of gratification, in a way, that a man such as this could care so deeply about the welfare of others.
Everything she learned about him challenged her assumptions.
“I have a question,” she said, steeling herself for the answer. “And I would like for you to be truthful.”
“Oh?” Some of the hardness left his expression. “I have not lied to you yet.”
“Why did you kiss me? Was that, too, a means of revenge?”
“Revenge? Oh, no.” He leaned a little closer—not enough that anyone would think anything was amiss, but enough that she could feel the pounding of her pulse in her extremities.
Heat splashed across her face. “I kissed you because I wanted to, lamb. Not as a duke might kiss a blushing young maiden aspiring to his brother’s hand, but as a man kisses a beautiful woman who stumbles upon him at a time he was least expecting it. ”
Her heart thudded. “Does that mean you will do it again?”
“That entirely depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether you’ll let me.”