Page 3 of The Duke's Auctioned Virgin
The cook sent up breakfast without being asked. Eggs, toast, bacon, and strong tea. Valeria ate all of it. She did not count. Did not look over her shoulder. She was hungry. The food was there. Nobody stopped her.
She ate a second helping. Then, a third piece of toast with more butter than Gordon would have allowed on the entire table.
The butter was cold and pale, and it tasted like freedom, which was a ridiculous thing to think about butter, but she thought it anyway.
Mary came in while she was eating and stood quietly by the door until Valeria noticed her.
“The undertaker will arrive this afternoon, Your Grace. Mrs. Adler has prepared the blue drawing room.”
“Fine,” Valeria said, still chewing.
“And the post has come. Three letters. I believe one is from Lady Bridget.”
Valeria put down her toast. She had not received a letter from Bridget in eight months. Gordon intercepted them. He read them first and then decided whether she was allowed to receive them. Most of the time, he decided not.
“Bring it to me,” she instructed. “Now, please.”
Mary curtsied and left, then came back with the letter. Valeria held it in both hands for a long moment before opening it.
Bridget’s handwriting. Familiar and round and slightly messy because she wrote too fast and never blotted properly. The paper smelled faintly of rose water.
Dearest Val,it began.I am writing this for the fourth time because I keep crying on the page and the ink runs.
Valeria read the whole thing twice. Then she folded it, put it in the pocket of her dressing gown, and went back to her toast. She did not cry. She was done crying. But she kept her hand on the letter for the rest of the morning.
The solicitor arrived the following morning. Mr. Pemberton was a thin man with spectacles that kept sliding down his nose. He cleared his throat before every sentence.
“Your Grace,” he said, perched on the edge of a chair, papers everywhere, “I must be frank. The situation is complicated.”
“Simplify it for me, Mr. Pemberton.”
He blinked. He was not used to being told what to do by women. She could see him deciding whether to be offended. He chose not to be.
Smart man.
He blinked and then pushed up his spectacles. “The Duke left no living heirs. The title of Thornhill will become extinct, and the estate will revert to the Crown. However, as the Dowager Duchess, you will retain your jointure. The difficulty is that a woman of your age and position, unmarried, with substantial holdings…” he trailed off.
She did not finish the sentence for him.
He cleared his throat. “There will be interest, Your Grace. Men who see opportunity in a young, wealthy, unattached duchess. Men who will not wait for an invitation. You should consideryour options quickly, before someone else considers them for you.”
Valeria’s stomach clenched.
Someone else considering her options for her… That was exactly how she had ended up here.
Not again.Neveragain.
She looked at her hands. Dry skin, cracked from three winters without hand cream. She had needed Gordon’s permission to use hand cream.
“My sister Caroline held an auction for her hand,” she said.
Mr. Pemberton’s eyebrows flew up. “An auction, Your Grace?”
“A house party. With games and trials, so that a woman can judge a man’s character before agreeing to marry him. Instead of the other way around.” She had been thinking about this all night. “I intend to do the same.”
“Your Grace, I must say that such an arrangement, while not unheard of, would attract considerable attention from the ton. The gossip alone would be… and your reputation…”
“My reputation survived three years of marriage to a man who starved me, Mr. Pemberton. It can survive a party.”
