Page 84 of Claiming his Cursed Duchess

“Certainly not you,” she remarked as softly as she could.

He scoffed. “Confident little thing since your marriage, aren’t you? But never forget where you came from, Rosaline.” His eyes ran over her unpleasantly. “You will always be a cursed, scarred orphan. You will never deserve the title of duchess, and everyone in society knows it.”

Rosaline swallowed around the sharp barb she wished to throw back.

Where is Adam when I need him?

There was something in her uncle’s bearing that put her on edge. It was the same look she had seen when he had spoken with Adam at the ball—as though he knew something but was not revealing what it was.

“Is that so?” she asked archly.

“It is. No one in this world will ever see you as more than that.”

“My husband sees me as ten times more than the woman you have just described,” she snapped back, injecting more confidence into her words than she felt.

Her uncle gave a disdainful laugh, stepping close to her.

“Your husband?” he asked, his eyes filled with pity. “The only reason you evenhavea husband is because I blackmailed him into it. It was a boon to engineer such a match, and to finally be rid of you.”

Rosaline’s stomach dropped at those words, the room going in and out of focus behind her uncle’s smug expression.

“Tell me, has the duke been asking you questions about me recently? Has he shown a special interest in my business decisions?”

Rosaline’s blood turned to ice in her veins as she thought of their conversation on the balcony a few days before.

“He married you out of necessity, Rosaline, and he used you to gather information that he needed about me.”

“You’re lying.”

“Oh my dear, it would be far less entertaining if I were,” he said lightly, and with that, he spun on his heel and turned away, going back to stand with his wife.

Rosaline could feel her breath coming more quickly, her pulse thundering in her ears.

Where is Adam? I must find him at once.

Adam stormed back toward the ballroom, trying his best to school his features into a neutral expression.

By God, the man planned this. He must have done.

As soon as he had opened the letter he had known that it was a duplicate. He would have known Henry’s sloppy, lopsided handwriting anywhere and the letter he had read was merely a copy of the original.

Adam had quit the study as quickly as he could, leaving Silas to secure the safe and get out of the house, but the fury that raged through him would not abate.

He walked back into the room just as Lord Claridge was on his way out and the man stopped, looking up at him with an expression of deep satisfaction on his face.

“Have you had a good tour around my property?” Claridge asked. “I do hope you foundeverythingyou were looking for.”

Adam clenched his jaw, his fingers curling into fists at his sides as he stared the man down, wondering if he could call him out here and now.

“You are a fool, Oldstone. You will never find the real letter. You are wasting your time.”

Claridge sipped the port from his glass, held loosely between his fingers.

“You have used your wife for nothing, it would seem,” he continued. “I am sure she will be most disappointed to learn she has been used as a pawn in your game.”

Adam stepped forward, glancing into the room to ensure that they were not being observed and used his height to loom over the man as Claridge shrank away from him.

“You are a worm, Claridge,” Adam growled, his voice reverberating through the space between them like thunder. “You will always be a worthless, revolting excuse for an earl, and the only credit you have to your name is a niece who has surpassed any expectation you ever had for her.”