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“I do not like being delayed,” he said. “State your case quickly, or go back to your embroidery. I have other places to be.”

Alicia glowered at him, and that infuriating smirk reappeared in a way that made heat crawl up her neck.

He watched her as though examining an interesting species he had never encountered before.

“Call off the wedding,” she spat.

“No.”

“I could never be happy with you. We will make each other miserable.”

He made a noise at the back of his throat that almost sounded like a laugh.

“Is that so? I am gratified that you have already got the measure of me, Duchess.”

“I am not your Duchess yet.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “It is only a matter of time. I don’t understand why you are trying to dissuade me. I am a duke; you can hardly expect anything better.”

Alicia scoffed. “You are very sure of yourself, Your Grace. Perhaps I simply do not wish to be tied to someone as brooding and ill-tempered as you.”

His smirk widened, heat flickering in his eyes. Something shifted in his manner, his shoulders lowering as he licked his lips, taking a step forward, disarming her completely.

She felt backed in a corner, trapped on all sides, when in reality she could simply have stepped back and been free of him. But she could not move. He was looming over her now, and his proximity was intoxicating.

“I am afraid, Lady Alicia, that you do not have any choice in the matter,” he said. “We will be married, whether you wish it or not,and as for making each other happy…” His eyes slid down her body and back up very deliberately. “I do not have such juvenile concerns.”

He turned away, heading to the footman as Alicia’s hands clenched into fists.

He reached the door as the footman passed him his hat, and he turned, looking at her for the final time as he placed it on his head.

“You are stuck with me, my Duchess. You had better get used to it.”

CHAPTER 4

“Oh, you look beautiful, Lady Alicia,” Rose said, clapping her hands together as she stepped back.

Alicia looked down at her wedding dress, the beauty of it a stark contrast to the churning dismay that filled her body.

Finally, her wedding day had arrived, and with it endless waves of panic she could not dispel.

As she waited in Radcliffe Manor for the ceremony to begin, it was no longer defiant rage that fueled her, but fear.

In the days leading up to the wedding, it had become increasingly clear that her friends were lying to her. There was a shroud of worry, punctuated by multiple uncertain looks that made her furious beyond bearing.

They were keeping something about her husband-to-be from her, and she was determined to root it out.

She had heard whispers of a darkness in his past, but no one would speak of it.

Isolated as she was, with her friends traveling down for the ceremony, the only person she could ask was her father.

The Earl had scoffed at her, telling her she was foolish and to ignore such nonsense. But he was not a good liar either.

It was the night before the wedding when she had finally heard the truth, and it had come from the most surprising of sources.

Sitting by the fire in her room at Radcliffe Manor, she had been reading a book of poetry, losing herself in the words of Coleridge to try and alleviate her worry. As she shifted in her chair, she heard voices outside her room and the creak of floorboards in the hallway.

She rose from her seat and went to the door, pressing her ear against it. She recognized the voices of two maids from her father’s household.