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He shot up to his feet growling, "she is mine." The thought of someone else in his place made him want to commit murder. She would use that sharp wit on someone else and be charming and exasperating to him.

She would kiss him and he would run his hands over her satin smooth skin.

No!

"Then you admit that you feel for her?"

The words were like nails dragging up the inside of his throat, "I love her and I believe I have loved her for a long time, Mother. I cannot lose her."

She may be quickening with his child at the moment, and he was not going to let any child of his grow up as a bastard. Lavinia would be his wife, his duchess, and the mother of the future Duke of Wyld. No other person would do, because he loved her.

The words felt easier in his head now and a tentative smile curled his mouth. His mother smiled too.

"I love her, " he breathed.

"Do not just stand here and tell me. I am not the one who needs to hear the words," she huffed.

He made to head for the door and she cleared her throat sharply, halting him. Then her eyes swept down his body pointedly, "I know love makes one a little bit crazy, but I am afraid you will be hurled off to bedlam before you can tell your Miss Proctor how you feel."

"You do not understand, there is hardly any time," even as he grumbled the words, he knew his mother was right.

He also needed to speak to his sister. For the first time since he had received the news at school that his father had passed, he felt something like hope fill his chest. Accompanying that hope was trepidation though, but he loved Lavinia Proctor and that had to be good enough.

Love.

The word only made him pause a little now.

He burst into his room and stared his valet down. "Set out my best suit. I have somewhere very important to be."

CHAPTER 23

The Duke of Wyld felt like a school boy as the carriage rambled down to the Hartfield house half an hour later. Never in his life had he felt so nervous, not even when it had dawned on him that he was now the Duke and had hundreds of new responsibility.

And so when the vehicle drew to a stop, he sat in the luxurious interior of the carriage and took deep breaths. Then he climbed down and crossed briskly to the front door of the house. Before he could even raise his hand to knock, the door was pulled open by the Stony faced butler.

Victor could swear there was a look of disapproval on the man's carefully blank face.

"Your Grace, please come on in."

He followed the man to the drawing room and took a seat at the edge of the settee. The butler offered him a bow and disappeared to go and inform the women about their guest.

"Your Grace," Lord Hartfield said from the doorway.

"Lord Hartfield," Victor climbed to his feet trying to keep his strained smile in place.

The older man sketched a bow, "I am glad I caught you today, Your Grace. Some of the men and I were discussing investing in a vineyard in France and we wanted to pick your brain about it."

Victor blinked at him in surprise, "I believe you should speak to Greenwood about that. I am afraid I know nothing about vineyards. I am unbelievably dense in anything outside of casual agriculture, livestock, and beer."

"Beer?" Lord Hartfield's eyebrows went up, "I heard tale about your brewery, but I thought it was just a rumor. Do you really work in it?"

He let out a laughter, suddenly at ease at the familiar topic of conversation, "I am more hands on than is conventional."

The older man's mustache twitched with a smile. "What is convention if not a set of stiff, silly rules? Tell me though, how do you find the time to manage so many vast businesses all the way from London?"

"Competent staff," he confessed. "But I think that I will settle fully in the country after I get married."

The man let out a booming laughter, "It is a good thing then that she cherishes the country. Give her a horse and enough land to traipse around and she will be content like a woman who has been given a box full of diamonds."