CHAPTER ONE #2
Five years ago, she’d been desperately in love with him.
She’d adored his intelligence and wit, how he made her feel just as smart as he was and never belittled her opinions because she was a woman.
The way his green eyes crinkled when he laughed always spun warmth through her.
So did his easy smiles. She’d never believed in love at first sight until the night they met at the Theatre Royal, when they’d made eye contact across three private boxes between them and he’d given her his first lazy smile.
While the rest of the audience was mesmerized by Don Giovanni, she’d been captivated by Gabe.
So of course she’d allowed him to introduce himself during intermission, enjoyed the easy conversation that rose between them, gave him permission to call on her at her home, then counted the hours until his next visit.
And the next after that. And the next…until they’d fallen in love.
She’d been impossibly happy three months later when he proposed.
Downright joyous, in fact, and so much so that she couldn’t stop smiling.
She’d wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with him.
She cared nothing about his titles or estates, fortunes, accounts…
or the way the gossips talked about her behind her back for daring to reach so far above her station.
His friend James Wentworth and his brother Adam had echoed the same thoughts directly to her face and undoubtedly said even worse to Gabriel.
But the only thing that had mattered to her was that Gabriel thought she was wonderful, that he loved her and wanted to marry her, that he trusted in her to be a good duchess.
Until he didn’t.
“Decisions regarding the children—including His Grace’s child, Lady Alice, from his first marriage—will be made solely by the duke.”
She rolled her hot, stinging eyes. Apparently, he didn’t trust her at all and had set up this humiliating meeting to prove it.
Old wounds always ached the worst. But God’s mercy, how much more penance was she expected to endure for sins she hadn’t even committed?
She’d already paid for them, and dearly.
All six feet of proof sat next to her, so close that she could smell the familiar scent of him that had been imprinted on her senses years before…
port, bergamot, and the musky scent of male.
He was just as handsome as she remembered, too.
Just as tall and broad-shouldered, golden blond, and fit…
Damn him. It would be so much easier to be married to him if he were a hideous monster. If he were anyone else.
But he was someone different now, she supposed. When they had finally seen each other again today, there had been no familiar glint in Gabriel’s eyes that had always been there before. No warmth, no affection, and only cool reserve and distance.
He was nothing but a stranger to her now.
“The wedding dress and trousseau will be made by Mrs. Swenson in Canterbury,” Mr. Putnam read off Gabriel’s list, “with final costs not to exceed three hundred pounds for the wedding dress and one hundred for accessories.”
“I don’t even have a say in my own wedding dress?” Helena demanded in a burst of disbelief, blinking hard to keep her tears from showing.
Mr. Putnam looked immediately at Gabriel for help. “We—that is, His Grace—wanted no misunderstanding regarding the creation of the dress and certainly no confrontation in the church on your wedding day that might delay the ceremony or—”
“Enough!” Helena shot to her feet, the humiliation unbearable.
A strangled sound squeaked from Mr. Putnam’s throat, and he gaped open-mouthed as his eyes darted between her and the pages in his hand.
Certainly, he thought every word was just fine.
A gift, in fact, for a penniless social outcast who should never have even been considered for marriage, let alone to a duke.
Well, she might be exactly that, but she still had her pride, even if tattered and bruised. And she refused be treated this way a moment longer.
She turned toward Gabriel. “Is that what this meeting is about, to belittle and humiliate me?” Her hands fisted at her sides to keep from ripping the pages away from Mr. Putnam.
She wanted to tear them to shreds! “Is that why you brought me all the way here, to prove that I’m still not good enough to be your duchess?
” Her chest squeezed painfully, and she choked as she asked in a low and rasping voice, “Hadn’t you already made that clear enough five years ago when you left me to marry an earl’s daughter? ”
Gabriel rose slowly to his feet. His eyes flashed, but his controlled expression gave away not one hint of his thoughts. “Mr. Putnam, would you see to Miss Sinfell’s coachman, to make certain he knows the way to Grangely Park?”
The befuddled, and now red-faced, solicitor nodded and scurried toward the door, obviously grateful to be away.
Then he remembered the sheath of papers he still held in his hands.
Muttering a string of apologies, he hurried back to drop them onto the desk, then darted like a frightened hare toward the hall and escape.
“And please close the door,” Gabriel added, his hazel eyes not leaving Helena. “I would like a moment alone with my fiancée.”
Fiancée. The word sparked heat through her even though the way he said it contained no warmth or affection, no hint whatsoever that they had once been in love. She cursed herself for letting him prick at her heart when he’d already irreparably destroyed the thing five years ago.
Straightening her spine in readiness for battle, she nodded after Mr. Putnam. “You didn’t have to send him away. Surely, he learned all about our past when he put that list together for you.”
With an inscrutable twist of his lips, Gabe crossed to a side table by the bookcase to help himself to a glass of brandy.
“Putnam knows nothing about you except that you are an old friend from my London days who has agreed to marry me.” He picked up the decanter and muttered, “Although I daresay, he now knows a great deal more.”
Her face flushed with a heat that surely glowed scarlet in her cheeks.
He pulled out the stopper. “And I did not invite you here to humiliate you. Your father offered marriage, and I accepted. That’s why you are here. It’s as simple as that.”
No even close! “Why did you accept?” Why come back into my life after all these years? Why did you jilt me in the first place?
He didn’t look at her as he splashed the caramel-colored liquid into the glass. “Because I’m in need of a wife, and I’m too old prowl among the misses at Almack’s.”
She heard his distaste for the idea in the soft thud of the bottle returning to the tabletop. Yet she also heard not one hint of remorse for what he’d done to her five years ago.
Pushing down her anger, she gestured at the cluttered office around them. “What was the point of subjecting me to all this, then?”
“The engagement was made long distance, and there wasn’t time to hammer out the details of our marriage contract. So we’re doing it now.”
She bit back a laugh. “This is your idea of a marriage contract?” Her voice quavered so strongly that she worried it might break. “Dozens of rules to keep me in line, right down to my wedding dress?”
“No. To protect you from unscrupulous businessmen.”
She coolly arched a brow yet couldn’t find the strength to speak louder than a hoarse whisper. “And who protects me from you?”