Page 3 of The Duke In My Bed (The Heirs’ Club of Scoundrels #1)
Women may fall, when there’s no strength in men.
Two years later
Though Bray had never met her, Miss Louisa Prim made his life a living hell since he’d first heard her name. It was time he settled with her.
Bray stared out the carriage window as it rolled to a stop in front of the newest Viscount Wayebury’s Mayfair town house. A slow, steady rain fell to the already soggy earth. Bray had known this day was coming. He just hadn’t wanted it to come so soon.
Soon?
It had been over two years since Nathan Prim’s death on Rotten Row. Many would not consider that quick, but Bray did. He’d hoped Prim’s sister would find a beau and be the wife of someone else by now, but she was obviously waiting for him to make good on his promise.
Unfortunately for him.
For the past two years, he couldn’t go to a party, a foxhunt, or even to a club without someone asking him either when or if he was going to marry Miss Prim. Not even his snarls and swears could keep the ton’s hunger for gossip at bay.
Since his father’s death last fall, Bray had been settling in to the duties of being a duke.
He’d never cared a damn about the title, though he always knew it would be his one day.
He’d half-lived in a way that most men wouldn’t have survived.
But he did survive, and despite his reluctance, he’d realized that along with everything else, his father taught him well how to handle the constant flow of decisions to make and questions to answer from the managers of all the estates, horses, lands, and the many companies presently entrusted to his care.
For now, with brooding resignation, Bray had come to accept the confining responsibility he inherited.
And with the sense of responsibility, he had also come to the conclusion that because of what he learned were the underhanded actions of a cowardly uncle, it was time to make good on his pledge to Nathan Prim.
It was time to tell Miss Prim they would be married.
But he would never like it.
Bray’s father had been a dashing, hot-blooded man who loved many women, and made no bones about being honored that his son had followed in his footsteps.
Neither Bray nor his father checked their self-restraint when it came to something that brought them pleasure, be it a voluptuous woman or a new racehorse.
Bray wasn’t about to let his duty to Miss Prim change that.
“Do you want me to go in with you?”
Bray grunted a laugh. He had been so intent on his thoughts, he almost forgot Seaton was in the carriage with him. “Hell no. I don’t even know why I agreed you could ride with me to Miss Prim’s house.”
“Perhaps because, like me, you feared you might have a change of heart at the last second and end up telling your driver to keep going right past the house without stopping.”
There was more truth to that comment than Bray wanted to admit. Deciding to willingly give up a portion of one’s freedom wasn’t an easy choice to make. However, those thoughts were best left in his own mind. “Have you no faith in me, Seaton?”
“None,” the old man answered with a twinkle in his midnight-colored eyes.
“As much as you would like for it to be so, I am not a boy who needs help from the schoolmaster to get his assignments accomplished. You are my friend, not my keeper.”
“Noted and accepted,” Seaton offered with an easy smile, “but you are late fulfilling your commitment.”
“I need no reminder from you. I had enough of them from my father when he was living. I’ve finally grown weary of the constant questions from the ton about Miss Prim, and men placing bets all over London about whether I would live up to my promise to marry her.
Then, as if all that weren’t enough, I received that terse letter and the documents from her uncle last week.
If I ever get my hands on that man, he’ll know damned well how I feel about his underhanded tactics. ”
“That was sly of him.”
“Dangerous, Seaton. I’ll find a way to repay him for his cowardly acts.”
“I can’t say that I blame you. I can understand his wanting to force you to take on the responsibility of Miss Louisa Prim, but dumping guardianship of the other girls in your care is unforgivable.”
“And you can be sure it won’t be,” Bray said, his anger heating at the thought. “Even though the blasted blackguard gave me no idea which country he’d escaped to, I hired a runner from Bow Street to go after him immediately, find him, and drag him back here by his hair if necessary.”
“I agree going after him is the right thing to do.”
“I will see to it the blackguard lives up to his obligations to the other Prim girls.”
“Do you still plan to let the Court of Chancery appoint a different guardian for them?”
“You know I do.”
“No one would blame you if you did, except perhaps Miss Louisa Prim. I’m sure she is quite happy that a duke will be seeing to her sisters’ future.”
“I have no doubt of that, Seaton. The only allegiance I feel to her about it is to tell her before I do it. I don’t have the time, the inclination, or the know-how to oversee the welfare of bevy of females and make arrangements to ensure that they are all properly married.”
“It was most impertinent of Lord Wayebury to assume you would take guardianship of all of them, and damned clever of him to arrange to have the letter sent a month after he left the country so it would be difficult for you to find him.”
“Clever and calculating is what it is. I promised to marry Miss Louisa Prim, not to take on the task of caring for all her sisters.”
“That said, I doubt you would be here today if not for his taking these matters into his own hands.”
Bray agreed to Seaton’s words by way of a shrug.
“I’ve always known I’d have to marry one day, but my view of marriage hasn’t changed.
I don’t want to engage in it. I have a woman in my bed any night I choose.
But now that I am a duke, I see the wisdom of having an heir and accomplishing it before one gets too old.
So, since I must marry, I suppose Miss Prim will do as well as any other chit to give me a son.
At least in her case, she couldn’t possibly expect this to be anything more than a marriage of duty, so I can forgo the wooing, the flattery, and the feigned devotion. ”
Seaton laughed, causing Bray to remember that Miss Prim’s father was a vicar before he inherited the title.
Bray didn’t relish the thought of marrying a vicar’s daughter.
She was probably a timid, fragile little prude who would tremble in fear and revulsion every time he came near her.
That type of bedmate held no desire for him, but Seaton didn’t care a fig about that.
The aging heir held to the old school that a man and young lady didn’t have to know each other before they married and they didn’t have to like each other or live together after they wed.
As long as the families agreed it was the best match, that was good enough for him.
Not even Bray’s father, on his deathbed, had been able to force Bray to commit to when he would ask Miss Prim to marry him.
“Have you met her?” Bray asked Seaton.
“No, I don’t think anyone has. From what I’ve heard, she arrived in London only a couple of days ago. It appears her uncle must have timed sending you the letter with her arrival.”
“No doubt she grew tired of waiting for me to come for her and she put her uncle up to this.”
“That could very well be true. I don’t know of a young lady who wouldn’t want to marry a duke.
You mentioned the uncle said one of the younger girls is making her debut at the first ball of the Season.
If she is more to your liking, marry her.
I’m sure she would satisfy your debt to her brother just as well as the older one.
Once you have an heir, you can feel free to never bother Her Grace again. ”
“There is some rationale to that thought. It seems to have worked for my parents—and quite nicely, from what I could tell. They lived happily apart for many years.”
“True. But if your father had mended his wicked ways when he married, been more discreet about his mistresses and orgies, and spent more time at home with his wife than drinking in his clubs and hunting lodges, he might have lived longer.”
Bray remained silent. He couldn’t remember a time when his parents were ever in the same house at the same time. Separate was just the way they lived, and Bray never had a reason to question them about it.
He shook off the memories along with the emotion that always threatened to surface when he thought about them. “The prospect of marriage might be a bit more palatable if I had been allowed to choose my own bride.”
“There is that line from one of Southey’s works about ‘the chickens,’ that ‘always come home to roost.’ You’ve lived your life by your own rules long enough. And if truth be told, it is that life that got you into this mess.”
Bray clenched his jaw.
“Listen, my friend,” Seaton continued. “You are handsome, fit, and now you are a duke before the age of thirty. How many gentlemen have been given so much power, influence, and wealth at such a young age?”
Bray reached and shoved open the door of the coach and jumped down to the soft ground. He lifted the collar of his greatcoat against the rain and looked up at his driver. “Take Mr. Seaton back to the club or wherever he wants to go.”
Seaton raised a brow. “I’m not leaving until I see you enter the house.”
Bray chuckled and shut the carriage door.
He turned and walked up the stepping-stone path to the front stoop.
He rapped the lion’s head door knocker twice and waited.
A few moments later, the door slowly opened, but only enough to allow the head of a blond-haired girl who looked to be around the age of eight or nine to peep from behind it.
Her features were small except for bright blue eyes that appeared almost too big for her cherub face.