Page 4

“ S o, you’re telling me that you ended up having to persuade her to marry you ?” James laughed. “You’re William Dreycott, Duke of Redmayne. You must be the most eligible gentleman in all of London. How did that happen?”

The two men sat in William’s study, a familiar place surrounded by old books and half-consumed bottles of alcohol. James had come calling to ask after the events that had occurred at his ball, and William had just finished explaining that he’d gone to ask Miss Arabella for her hand in marriage.

William took a long sip of his ale. “Don’t ask me to believe there were no surprising moments when you courted your duchess,” he pointed out.

“My entire courtship was surprising. You know what happened. I inherited my title only to find that the Dowager Duchess was still in the house. It was never my intention to fall in love with her,” James said. “But you also know that my situation is very different from yours.”

“I suspect all situations are very different from one another.”

“Oh, don’t get all esoteric on me! I’m just trying to find out what happened between you and this girl, this baron’s daughter.”

“Miss Arabella.”

“Yes, well—what made you decide to marry her? I’m sure it wasn’t just that you felt a powerful urge to save her from a disgrace of her own making. You’re a kind enough fellow, but it’s difficult to imagine you choosing to sacrifice your own life and happiness for somebody else in that way.”

“You make it all sound so dire. Did you sacrifice your life and happiness when you married?”

“Of course not,” James scoffed. “But I’m in love with my wife. She is my life and my happiness. Don’t ask me to believe that things are the same with you. You don’t even know Lady Arabella.”

“She does have an intriguing disposition, though.”

“You want me to believe that you are in love with her?”

“Oh, believe whatever you want,” William said, tired of the interrogation.

James leaned forward. “William, come now. I’m your best friend. I don’t know why you’re trying to keep things from me, but you must understand, I’ve got your best interests in mind. After all, the two of you met at my ball, so I do feel some responsibility for this situation.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. How could you be responsible? You didn’t send her into that library and tell her to take her clothes off,” William argued. “Besides, what everyone keeps telling me is right. I don’t have to marry her. I could walk away from this if I wanted to.”

“And yet, you’re not doing that,” James observed. “Can you blame me for wanting to know why?”

“My father would hate it,” William said simply.

“Ah,” James replied, understanding dawning on his face.

William had made no secret over the years of the fact that he wanted to flout his father’s expectations.

He had resented them all his life. His father was the most traditional gentleman anyone could ever wish to meet, and he had always stressed to William the necessity of a good match, a suitable wife, an heir to Redmayne.

The more his father had insisted upon those things, the more William had come to resent them.

When his father had been on his deathbed, he had taken William by the hand and made his point one final time. “Marry a suitable woman,” he had said. “Make sure that our legacy is secure.”

And those had been his final words. William had never been able to get past it. The last time he would ever speak to his son, and that was what he had used the moment to say?

Yes, his father would hate that he had chosen the tatty daughter of a poor baron, someone with such a bad reputation.

He would hate to know that William was paying someone else’s debt in order to marry a daughter who, to be perfectly honest, had to marry him if she wanted to avoid being disgraced.

And the fact that he had promised Arabella that they would not try to produce an heir—well, that would have his father positively spinning in his grave.

He would hate everything about this arrangement.

That was why William liked it so much.

“You know,” James said now, “your father will never know about this marriage, William.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“You say you want to marry the girl because your father would hate it—all right, that’s true. But in reality, your father won’t feel anything about it because he won’t know it’s happening. The only one who is going to pay the consequences of this is you.”

“What point are you making?”

“I’m just wondering if you’ve really thought this through, that’s all. If you’re sure this is something you want. I know it satisfies you to think that you’re defying your father, but wouldn’t neglecting to marry at all defy his wishes just as much? You don’t have to do this.”

“Well, I have to do it now,” William observed. “I’ve already made the offer. I might not have destroyed my reputation by failing to save hers, but I won’t do myself any favors if I make an offer and then rescind it, will I?”

“There are always ways out of these things,” James said. “I could help you find the way, if you want. If you feel that you’ve made this decision too impulsively…”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” William said firmly. “I intend to see it through. As I said… there’s something that amuses me about the girl.”

“And she actually had the audacity to try to set terms for the marriage? Knowing how badly she needed you to come to her rescue?”

“That’s part of what entertains me, truth be told.

You’re right. I would have expected her to fall on her knees with gratitude.

And I don’t think the problem is that she’s foolish.

She has never seemed like a fool to me. She knows the trouble she was in, and she knows that I’m saving her from that trouble.

And even knowing that, she was bold enough to set conditions. Yes, she’s very entertaining indeed.”

“What conditions did she set?”

“Oh, nothing I wouldn’t readily have agreed to anyway,” William said. “The only real surprise was the insistence that I pay her father’s debt. In truth, I have no quarrel with doing so, but I’m sure it took quite a bit of tenacity for her to make that request.”

“Do you think her father coaxed her into doing so?”

“No, I’m sure he didn’t even know she was going to do that.

I spoke to him before I spoke to her, and he seemed more concerned about offering me money.

He didn’t have any to offer, of course. He spoke of trying to scrape together a dowry, but it was clear that it would be nothing more than a token.

I think he thought that was something he had to do to engage my interest. There was never any conversation between the two of us about me giving him money.

I’m sure he thought I would be put off by such a thing. ”

“So, the young lady came up with that idea on her own?”

“It seems so.” William sipped his drink.

“You’re right,” James agreed. “She is very bold.”

“Another reason my father wouldn’t have cared for her,” William observed.

“He always stressed to me that a good woman was one who could be led, one who would submit. You know that’s the way my mother was, and that’s what he valued about her—not her mind, not her spirit or even the fact that she was loving to him and to his children.

If you asked him what he liked best about her, he would have said it was the fact that she was submissive.

He would hate that I’ve chosen a woman who is the very opposite of that. ”

“Well, I have to hand it to you,” James conceded. “If your goal is to be able to know with every waking moment that you’ve thwarted your father’s wishes, I’d say you’ve successfully done that. Well done.”

“Thank you,” William said. “I’m glad you finally see things my way.”

“I didn’t say I saw things your way. I still think this is a mistake,” James argued.

William felt a squirm of discomfort at that thought, but he pushed it away.

“You’re taking it much too seriously,” he told his friend.

“I probably would have married eventually anyway. If I’m going to do so, I would like it to be to a lady who would cause my father some consternation. Truly, that’s all this is.”

“Well, all right,” James conceded. “I hope the two of you will be very happy together.”

William laughed. “We won’t be anything at all together,” he said.

“She’ll live in my house and have the title of duchess, but it’s not as if we’re going to have a real relationship.

Even she knows that. It was one of her conditions for agreeing to the marriage.

She doesn’t want to be happy with me any more than I want to be happy with her.

She just wants to save her family from disgrace. ”

“And you want to cause your family disgrace.”

“Put it however you like.”

James laughed. “I can’t deny that this is entertaining,” he said. “Personally, I think you’re in over your head, but I’ll enjoy watching what comes of it.”

“Nothing is going to come of it.”

“If you say so.”

There was a knock on the door of the study.

“Come in,” William called.

The door opened to reveal Carson, the butler.

William had replaced most of the members of his staff following his father’s death, but Carson was one of the few he had kept on because he was so good at his job and because he had been at Redmayne so long that it would have seemed cruel to dismiss him.

William had never been sure what Carson thought of him, whether he respected him or not.

If he did have issues with William, he did a good job of keeping them to himself.

“Your Grace,” he said now, “you have guests.”

“Guests?”

“Lady Hawridge and Lady Whitehorn.”

William couldn’t suppress a groan. “I suppose you’d better show them in.”

“Well, I’m not going to stay for this,” James said, getting to his feet. William was not surprised. Lady Hawridge and Lady Whitehorn—Beatrice and Grace—were his cousins, and even he found them intolerable. He would have left with James if he could have gotten away with it.

Since he knew he couldn’t do that, he poured himself another drink. “I’ll get out the good stuff if you stay and don’t make me deal with them alone,” he offered.

James only laughed. “Absolutely not,” he said. “Those two are all yours. I’ll see you in a few days.”

Wonderful. So now I’m stuck with nothing more than my cousins for company .

“Show them in, please, Carson,” he said, knowing that he had no choice but to get this over with. Hopefully he would be able to have them in and out very quickly because he couldn’t imagine that either Grace or Beatrice would have anything to say that he would want to hear.

One thing was certain, he mused, left momentarily alone in the study—they were not going to have anything good to say about his impending marriage to Miss Arabella.