Page 16 of Kiss the Duke Goodbye
Fight for what you want, gel.
Knox had come to think of Clerkenwell as home.
Shaken by this sudden realization, he nodded mindlessly to the costermonger and waved to a group of children playing marbles on the corner. A tow-headed boy he’d given sweets to last week. He was early, a departure from his usual routine of arriving after dark. The day hadn’t yet drawn to a close, a twilight mist only now rolling in to twist about his feet. He’d had his driver drop him on Chancery Lane and had walked from there. His fingers were numb from the cold, his cheeks were stinging, but his heart was light.
Because today was the day he changed his life.
Today was the day he asked the woman he loved to marry him.
Knox almost laughed to recall the shocked, nay,stunned, expressions on his brother’s faces when he told them of his plans. The girl he’d chosen wasn’t a complete surprise, marriagewas.
A union he wasn’t forced into, that is. Money—and his lack of it—having nothing to do with it. This was all about love.
There was still the issue of his failing estates, of course. His tenants, the church roof, the village roads, etcetera. But the DeWitts had put their heads together and figured out how to gather enough blunt to keep the duchy above water for another six months, maybe eight. Cort felt sure the steam engine investments would start paying off soon after. And if they didn’t, Knox could start working at the Petal and Plume. He felt he’d make an excellent milliner if his darling girl was willing to train him.
He whipped his hat from his head and thumped it happily against his thigh. He honestly didn’t give a fig what he had to do to keep her.
He would dig ditches if it came to it, which it wouldn’t. Somehow, he’d concoct a plan, the dance a hundred aristocratic men before him had done with moderate success. Living without the woman he cherished was a burden he wasn’t adding to the others. While watching Clarissa sleep the night before, her gentle breaths calming him in a way nothing had, he’d decided. The utterlyfinalstraw had been a scented note from that silly Countess Wimby asking him if he’d like to come for tea.I’d appreciate being the one doing the courting,is what he wanted to reply. Instead, he’d ripped up the missive and tossed it in the rubbish bin where it belonged.
He couldn’t wait for the day all of England learned of his marriage and reacted accordingly. Let the broadsheets spillgallons of ink about the scandal and every titled nob in London rebuff him per theton’sstandard social agreement. He hoped the rags made a bloody fortune writing about the duke and his milliner, and society had a fine time reading about it. Maybe he and Clarissa would become a legendary couple, like Eros and Psyche. He only needed to ensure Clarissa was aware of what was to come. They’d be pariahs for a while, or possibly, forever.
He honestly didn’t think she cared, part of the reason he adored her to pieces.
No matter the disgrace he faced, he wasn’t backing down. Amiable to a point, the Duke of Herschel was the most stubborn of men when he made up his mind.
Knox rolled his gloved fingers into fists. This time, he’d made up his bloody mind.
Clarissa Marlowe was going to be his duchess.
With a nervous shake of his shoulders, he knocked on the door, crumpling the brim of his hat in his fist. Knox could have used the garden entrance as he had on several occasions, but today of all days, he wanted to arrive formally through the front. His heart thumped when it opened, then took a firm dive to his belly. Clarissa’s housekeeper, Mrs. Newton, stood in the entryway wearing the same guarded expression she’d worn the other times she’d met him. Which were precisely two. She didn’t trust him, and he didn’t blame her for it. He was renowned in ways he wished he wasn’t. He also appreciated that she was trying to protect her employer in some small measure.
“Miss Marlowe isn’t in at the moment,” she said before he’d formulated one damned thing to say. Then, she made a move to shut the door practically in his face.
He wedged his Hoby boot neatly in the jamb to keep that from happening. “Did she leave a note for me, by any chance?”
“She did not, Your Grace.”
His temper sparked. “I’ll check the Petal and Plume, then.”
She nodded without comment.
They stared across the narrow battlefield of an open doorway, his beaver hat taking the punishment for his unease. Reluctantly, he stepped away, drew a breath of London’s frigid winter, and went back the way he’d come. West, to Mayfair.
His steps were trudging, and his heart was no longer light.
Crestfallen, he feared this rejection signaled the end of his grand love affair.
Clarissa wandered Viscount Pemberly’s indigo parlor, as his majordomo had called it when he’d settled her here. She’d had to travel to his Surrey country home for this discussion, a dwelling she’d never visited. The chamber was lovely, done in shades of sapphire that would make an impressive bonnet. Another servant had come to pour tea and serve gingerbread biscuits, flitting around like her visit was perfectly normal. The piquant scents mixed pleasantly with the cozy aroma of the hearthfire, a calming aspect she wished she could appreciate.
Perhaps she’d create an indigo-hued hat for the occasion of swallowing her pride whole. A celebratory accessory when one admitted hereditary defeat.
Sighing, Clarissa glanced at the mantel clock. Her father often used delay tactics to put her at a disadvantage. Thankfully, she was no longer young or impressionable enough to fall for such rubbish.
She hoped.
When the parlor door opened, and he marched through it seconds later, she suspected the world had changed in some way for him as well. He’d never come to her in less than a half hour.
Her stomach twisted to note their resemblance, a shock each time she saw him. Not enough of a similarity to alert society but enough forher. Enough for him, because he’d been unable to argue with her mother’s claim about her parentage.