The Duchess Deal

  But that was in the past. His once-charming wit had been replaced by smoldering anger, and his once-attractive face had been rearranged. No woman would be wooed by the kisses of a bitter, disfigured wretch.

  It didn't matter. He didn't need to woo a lover. He needed to secure a wife. Wed her, bed her, and, once she was swelling with his heir, tuck her away in the country. The end.

  He straightened, arching a sardonic eyebrow. A fortunate thing, that he still had one eyebrow intact. What was being a duke, if not arching a sardonic eyebrow?

  She released the tape. "Choose your fabric at the draper's and have five yards sent over. With your coloring, I suggest a pink brocade."

  His tilted his head. "Really? I was thinking of peach."

  She gathered his hat, cloak, gloves, and walking stick and pushed them into his arms. "And now I must ask you to leave. I need to be getting home."

  "We can accomplish both those things at once. I'll take you home. My carriage is just outside."

  "Thank you, I prefer to walk."

  "More convenient still. My feet are even closer than the carriage."

  She headed for the rear exit of the shop. Ash replaced his topcoat, cloak, gloves, and hat, then followed her out into a dank, reeking alleyway. With his long strides to her short ones, he quickly made up the ground.

  Her shoes tapped over the cobblestones at an irritated clip. "I will not be your mistress. My body is not for let."

  "That can't be entirely true. You're a seamstress, aren't you? Your fingers are for let."

  "If you don't know the difference between a woman's fingers and her womb, I would definitely not share a bed with you."

  After a moment's stunned pause, he laughed. It was a rusty, unappealing sound. He supposed he was out of practice.

  "I do know the difference." He reached for her ungloved hand and brushed his thumb over each of her fingertips. "You can trust I won't confuse the two."

  He stroked a callus on the tip of her second finger. It made him angry. A gentleman's daughter should have soft hands, but life had hardened her in these small ways. He had disturbing fancies of lifting her hand to his lips and kissing all that hurt away.

  She sucked in her breath, as if she could read his thoughts. Or maybe her own thoughts had startled her.

  She withdrew her hand. "What is your aim? Simply to torment me further?"

  "No, that is not my aim. Though I suspect, over time, it will be an unavoidable consequence."

  She gave a little growl.

  Ash found it wickedly arousing. Not that he would tell her so. He was too distracted by the way she hugged herself and shivered. "Where is your cloak?"

  "I left it at your house yesterday."

  "Well. I hope that teaches you a lesson about making dramatic exits."

  Ash removed his own cape and twirled it about her shoulders, tucking in the ends until she resembled a penguin. "Come along, then." He swiveled her by the shoulders and nudged her into a waddle.

  Offering her his cloak was not mere gallantry. It was self-protection. He had gloves, but the leather was too fine, too supple. Without the barrier of the cloak, he could still feel her. He didn't wish to relive the visceral shock that had rocketed through him in his library.

  "Now," he said, "perhaps you'll pay attention. I don't recall saying anything about a mistress. I believe I used the word 'duchess.'" He gestured at their bleak surroundings. "I would not trouble to come here for any other purpose."

  "You can't be serious. Not really, truly, honestly, earnestly, properly."

  He allowed a few moments to pass. "Are you quite done listing adverbs? I should hate to interrupt."

  His little penguin bounced in agitation.

  Ash was agitated, as well. Judging by her insistence that he couldn't possibly want her, he suspected some other man had made her feel unwanted. That made him furious.

  "Listen to me, Emma."

  Look, he was already thinking of her as Emma. A small, stubborn little name, Emma. It suited her.

  "The answer is yes," he said. "I am serious. Really, truly, honestly, earnestly, properly. And I mean to have you, completely."

  Emma lost her footing and nearly stumbled face-first into an apple seller's cart.

  She righted herself, but not before the duke's hand shot out to steady her. He didn't let go, either. Instead, he gripped tighter and guided her around the cart, maneuvering his body between her and a passing carriage.

  He moved swiftly, and she struggled to keep pace with him. In truth, she'd been struggling to keep pace with him since the moment she'd entered his library. Wrestling to understand his intentions, sparring with his wit. Chasing after her own body's responses. He was exhausting. Less of a man, more of a gymnasium.

  "If it's a wife you want," she said, "surely you could find many women--many well-bred ladies--who would be willing to marry you."

  "Yes, but I'd have to find them. This saves me so much effort."

  She threw him a sidelong glance. "Can you not hear yourself? Do you truly not know how insulting that sounds?"

  "I should think it sounds beneficent. I'm offering you a title and fortune. All you have to do is lie back in the dark, then spend nine months swelling up like a tick. What could possibly deter any woman from accepting?"

  "What, indeed. Perhaps a disinclination to feeling like a broodmare."

  They stepped off the pavement and crossed the street.

  "A broodmare. Hm. I'm not certain I mind that comparison. If you're a broodmare, that would make me the stud."

  "And there," she said, "is the injustice of the world in a nutshell."

  He ignored her statement. "On reflection, I prefer 'stallion.'"

  "Never mind the horses!" She made a strangled noise of frustration. "It's absurd to even suggest we could marry. We scarcely know each other. And what little we do know of each other, we don't like."

  "I'm not aware of the courtship customs back in your quaint little inbred village, but at my level of society, wedlock is a matter of two concerns: childbearing and finances. What I'm offering is a marriage of convenience. You're living in poverty, and I"--he laid his hand to his chest--"have a great deal of money. I need an heir, and you"--he waved toward her with a flourish--"have the capacity to bear one. There's no need to like each other. As soon as a child is conceived we'll go separate ways."

  "Separate ways?"

  "You'd have your own house in the country. I'll have no further need of you then."

  When they turned onto a busier lane, he tugged down the brim of his hat and turned up the collar of his coat. Night was falling, but the moon was bright. He obviously didn't want to draw attention. Sympathy breezed into Emma's heart like an unwelcome visitor.

  "You're assuming," she continued, "that your theoretical child would be male. What if you fathered a girl? Or five of them?"

  He shrugged. "You're the vicar's daughter. Pray for a boy."

  "You are terrible."

  "Since we are on the subject of personal failings, you are irrational. You're allowing pride to cloud your common sense. Spare yourself the effort of argument and skip to the inevitable conclusion."

  "I conclude that this conversation is madness. I don't understand why you keep speaking as though you'd marry me."

  "I don't understand why you keep speaking as though I won't."

  "You are a duke. I am a seamstress. What else is there to be said?"

  He held up one hand and counted off on his fingers. "You are a healthy woman of childbearing age. You are a gentleman's daughter. You are educated. You're passably pretty--not that it's a concern for me, but a child should have at least one nonhideous parent." He was down to his last finger. "And you're here. All my requirements are met. You'll do."

  Emma stared at him in disbelief. That was, perhaps, the most unfeeling proposal she could imagine. The man was cynical, insensitive, condescending, rude.

  And she was definitely going to marry him.

  Against all logic, and cont
rary to everything she knew of society, he appeared to be making her an earnest proposal of marriage. She would be the greatest ninny in England to refuse.

  Seamstresses didn't have many long-term prospects. The years of detailed needlework caused their eyes to fail and fingers to stiffen. Emma knew that her best chance--perhaps her only chance--at security was to marry. She would be a fool to refuse any duke, even if he were a bedridden septuagenarian with poor hygiene.

  This particular duke was none of those things. Despite his many, many faults, Ashbury was strong, in the prime of life, and he smelled divine. He offered her security, at least one child to dote upon . . .

  And a house.

  A quiet house of her own in the country. Precisely the thing that would allow her to help Miss Palmer, at a time when the poor girl had no one else.

  The duke slowed to a halt. "By the Holy Rood. This isn't right."

  Drat. That would teach her to dream, even for a second. He'd come to his senses after all. This was the moment where he sent her away, and she ended an old woman on the docks, darning sailors' shirts for ha'pennies and muttering about how she might have been a duchess.

  "We're in the middle of St. James Park," he said.

  "Are we?" She took in their surroundings. Autumn-browned grass. The half-bare branches of trees. "I suppose we are. What's a Holy Rood?"

  "The cross of Christ. And you call yourself a vicar's daughter? You father would be appalled."

  "Believe me, that wouldn't be a new development."

  "Just where is it you live, anyway?"

  "In an attic garret, two doors down from the shop."

  "So we're here because . . ."

  She bit her lip. "I was hoping to lose you. But I've since changed my mind."

  "Damned right you have." With gruff impatience, he drew her to his side, steering her with a hand to the small of her back. "Do you know what kind of scum lurks in St. James Park by night?"

  "Not really."

  "Pray you do not have occasion find out."

  "It's barely nightfall yet. I'm certain we'll be--"

  She didn't have a chance to complete the thought. A pair of men emerged from the shadows, almost as though the duke had hired them precisely to prove his point.

  And from the looks on their faces, the men were expecting to be paid.

  Chapter Four

  Ash hated always being right.

  He positioned himself between the men and Emma, keeping one hand on her back and clutching his walking stick with the other. "Well?" he goaded. "Get to it, already. Tell me what it is you want, so that I can tell you to get stuffed, and we can all carry on with our lives. I've a full schedule this evening."

  "Toss over the purse, guv. Watches and rings, too."

  "Get stuffed. There, now. See how easy that was?" He slid his arm around Emma's shoulders. "We'll be going."

  The second man held up a knife. "Hold there. I wouldn't try anything clever."

  "I should hope you wouldn't," Ash replied dryly. "You'd no doubt injure yourself in the attempt."

  The man with the knife feinted, jabbing it in the direction of Ash's ribs. "Shut it. And give up your coins and baubles, unless you fancy bleedin' to death in front o' your bit of skirt."

  His bit of skirt?

  "Not to worry, miss." The first man chuckled, winding a length of rope around one of his hands and pulling it tight with the other. "We'll be glad to take you off the gentleman's 'ands."

  A savage growl rose in Ash's throat. "Like the devil you will." Brandishing his walking stick like a sword, he sliced the air in a wide arc, forcing the footpads back. "Touch her and you will pay with your lives, you diseased, maggoty curs."

  He'd gone beyond anger, sailed straight past rage, and crashed into a place of primal fury, where blood ran in colors he hadn't known to exist.

  The blade glinted in the gathering dark. Its owner lunged, but Ash stepped to the side, pushing Emma back with his free arm. With a vicious strike, he sent the blackguard to his knees. The knife tumbled into the grass.

  Whirling around, he raised his walking stick again, preparing to deal the other cutpurse a backhand blow, hard enough to crush bone.

  Before he could swing, a gust of wind dislodged his hat.

  In unison, the thieves recoiled.

  "Sweet Jesus," one of them whispered.

  "Christ 'ave mercy," the other said, scrambling backward on his hands and feet. "'Tis the Devil, to be sure."

  Ash stilled, fuming with a wrath that burned his lungs and holding his stick poised for violence. However, violence no longer appeared necessary. After a tense silence, he lowered the stick. "Begone."

  Neither of them dared to move.

  "Begone!" he roared. "Slink home like the craven whoresons you are, or I swear to you, you will beg for the Devil to take your souls."

  They scrambled and fled. No victory had ever been so hollow.

  On returning to London, Ash had harbored a small hope that he might not look quite so monstrous as his few interactions had led him to believe. Maybe Annabelle was just Annabelle--shallow and prizing appearances above all else. Perhaps his former friends truly had been too busy to visit more than once, and the majority of his servants really had needed to visit far-flung relations who'd suddenly taken ill.

  Maybe--just maybe--the scars weren't that bad.

  He'd been deluding himself. That much was now clear. His appearance was every bit as repulsive as he'd feared, if not worse. Those were hardened criminals he'd sent scurrying like rats into the gutter. And he expected a quick-witted, lovely young woman to rejoice at his offer of marriage?

  Everyone would revile him. No woman with any sense would have him. When he turned, Emma would be gone. He was certain of it.

  He knew nothing.

  She was still there, wielding a tree branch in both hands as she stared after the retreating brigands. His cloak had slipped from her shoulders. Her breaths made angry clouds of vapor in the cold air.

  At length, she dropped the branch, then moved to retrieve his hat from where it had landed a few feet distant. "Are you unharmed?"

  Ash stared at her in bewilderment. Her question didn't make sense. None of this made any sense.

  She'd not only not run, she'd prepared to defend him--absurd as that was. He didn't know what to do with her, and he didn't have the faintest notion what to do with himself. He couldn't help but feel . . .

  He couldn't help but feel. All manner of emotions, and all of them at once.

  To begin, he was vaguely insulted by the suggestion that he might need help from a wisp of a girl. That led to a growing desire to possess her, to show her just who protected whom in this exchange. And then, beneath everything, there was some quiet, unnameable emotion that made him want to lay down his pride, rest his head in her lap, and weep.

  That third was, of course, unthinkable. Never going to happen. Nevertheless, the decision was made. She'd sealed her own fate.

  If she meant to escape him, she'd missed her chance.

  He'd be damned if he'd let her get away now.

  Emma sensed the change in him. The stony set of his jaw. The furious rise and fall of his breath. No blue remained in his eyes--only a cold, glittering black.

  He'd been intense from the first, but now he was . . . so intensely intense, she couldn't find a word to properly describe it. But she felt it. Oh, she felt it to her toes. Each hair on her body lifted at the root; her every nerve jumped to attention.

  Her body knew something would happen.

  Her mind had no idea what it would be--except that it would involve the unleashing of formidable power.

  "Your hat," she said. As if it might need explaining that the hat-shaped object in her hand was indeed a hat and not, say, a joint of mutton.

  He took the hat.

  He took his cloak from where it had fallen to the spongy turf.

  And then he took her.

  He didn't offer his arm, as gentlemanly custom would dictate. He gripped her
by the elbow instead, herding her toward the street. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

  "I'm not," she muttered.

  Not that Emma was happy they'd been set upon by thieves. That had been terrifying, and she had no desire to ever experience it again. However, now, with the benefit of knowing they'd escaped unscathed, she could revisit the memory and feel a thrill at his instinctive move to guard her and the outraged precision with which he'd dispatched the two men.

  No one had ever protected her that way.

  Whatever attraction she'd felt toward him beforehand--and she had felt an attraction, no matter how unwillingly--was increased a hundredfold.

  "I'm the one who should apologize," she said. "It was all my fault. We would not have ended here in the park if--"

  "If I'd paid the slightest attention. The fault was mine." He led her out of the park without further conversation. At the nearest crossing, he hailed a hackney cab. "You're going home. My carriage will come for you tomorrow. Have your things ready."

  The air vacated her lungs. "Wait. What are you saying?"

  "From there, you'll go to a hotel. Mivart's, I think."

  Mivart's. The finest, most luxurious hotel in Mayfair. Emma had visited it once, to hem a gown for a visiting Austrian baroness. She had never imagined she would stay in such a place.

  "I'll send for you once the solicitors have finished the contracts." The duke opened the hackney's door and stuffed Emma into it. "We'll be married at Ashbury House."

  "But . . . but . . ."

  He gave directions to the hackney driver, then moved to close the door and shut her inside. "On second thought, don't pack your belongings. I'll buy you new. I've no use for moldy potatoes."

  She thrust her boot into the door opening before he could close it. "Wait."

  He stared at her. "What?"

  Excellent question. Emma didn't have the faintest idea what. Only that this was all happening so fast. Too fast. Her life had been set spinning, and she didn't want to make it stop--but she needed some sort of handle to grasp.

  "I . . . I insist on bringing a cat."

  He made a noise of unmitigated disgust. "A cat."

  "Yes, a cat. My cat."

  Emma, you idiot. You don't even have a cat.

  She would find one, she decided. If she meant to enter a marriage with no promise of affection and inhabit that vast, elegant house, she needed at least one ally. What better than a fuzzy, wide-eyed kitten?