Page 26 of The Duke's Second Bride

For a long moment, all they could do was stare at each other.

Finally, frustrated that she had said nothing, he shook his head. “Clearly you do not wish it,” he said. “I will leave you to sort out your own plans.”

He went to leave.

“Wait!” she called.

He turned back around. For another scorching moment, they locked eyes.

“I will marry you,” she said, so breathless he could almost imagine she was saying it under entirely different circumstances.

Then, as if to soundly shatter that illusion, she shook her head again.

When she spoke, her voice was firmer once more. “Only because I have no other choice.”

He nodded. “Of course.” He cleared his throat. “I will acquire the special license in the morning. We shall be wed within the week. I will take care of everything. And if Lord Dunfair tries to lay a finger on you again, I promise you he will regret it.”

With that, he hurried inside, before they argued more—or worse, before the temptation to kiss her became overwhelming.

Christian kept his word. It took only a few days to acquire the special license needed to conduct a wedding in such short order. There was only one matter he was dreading.

Then again, he thought, as he walked up the steps to the Dunfair townhouse, perhaps it was this matter he had been looking forward to the most.

He banged on the door with all his might, and no concern for who on the street might hear. Let them take notice.

After a moment with no response, he paused to press his ear to the door. Two voices conversed in hushed, distressed tones.

Having confirmed the house was not entirely empty, Christian immediately began knocking once more.

The door swung open after ten or eleven heavy-handed knocks, revealing the bewildered face of a middle-aged man.

“Good afternoon, sir,” he said. Lord Dunfair’s butler, Christian assumed. “May I help you?

“I am here to speak to Lord Dunfair,” Christian said, barely holding in his impatience.

The butler looked him up and down. “May I ask who you are, sir?”

“The Duke of Richmond.”

The butler swallowed, though his face betrayed no other emotion. “Lord Dunfair is not here?—”

Christian pushed past the butler. His frail protests soon gave way to silence.

Sure enough, Lord Dunfair was just in the room off the foyer. He leapt to his feet just as soon as he heard the ruckus, as though trying to present a calm exterior.

As soon as he saw Christian, the other man’s expression flickered from fright to a forced placidity. Christian was pleased to see the bruises that had bloomed across the man’s face. His hand itched with the desire to add a few more to the spread.

Before Dunfair could shut the door, Christian stopped him with a foot in the doorway.

Dunfair eyed him fearfully. “What do you want?” he inquired.

Christian kept his voice calm, but firm. “A simple matter. Finances. A family matter,” he said, quoting what the pitiful man opposite him had said the other night. “We may discuss it if you allow me in.”

Dunfair hesitated for a moment and then opened the door. “So long as you promise not to blacken my other eye.”

“That shall depend on what you say,” Christian said, maintaining an even tone of voice. He noticed how the other man blanched at the reply.

Once they were in the drawing room, Christian pulled out the document he’d had drafted up.