Page 7 of A Bride for the Heartless Duke
“I require a maternal figure,” he pressed on carefully. “Someone who can navigate the world and teach Sophia—my daughter—alla girl of her station needs to know, while being a constant in her life when I am not there. I am not...hmph,let’s just say, I make a poor companion for a young girl.”
Miss Fairbourne looked down at her gown, smoothing the skirts with an absent hand. That yellow truly did nothing for her, and he wanted her free of the gown entirely. In her damnable shift would’ve been less distracting. He’d thought selling the dress would be a kind of closure, but instead, it had somehow wound itself back to him, and now it felt like a different sort of torture.
He locked the thought down hard, same as everything else worth feeling these days. The only room he ever let such things loose was in a grimy, rundown tavern, both fists swinging at a man who wanted his blood nearly as much as he wanted the violence itself. Grimacing at the reminder, he rolled his shoulder where the bruise he’d endured from the earlier bout had begun to take root.
Her eyes flicked to him there, but the otherwise loquacious chit did not bring it up. Another positive in his books.
“This is… rather unexpected,” she murmured instead, glancing up at him again, then looking back down, teeth finding her lip a third time. “I confess I was not thinking—I never assumed you would… but whyme?”
Because she had happened on him when he finally gave the notion of taking a mother for his daughter a thought. Because she came in wearing a dress he recalled vividly marryingGrace in, which naturally made him think of marriage—once he recovered from the shock.
And because she was not someone with whom he fancied he could ever form a romantic attachment, thus making her eminently suitable to be his wife—a mother to Sophia—and nothing more.
“Would you like the romantic lie or the plain truth?”
Puzzled, she said, “Plain?”
“Because you happen to have everything I am looking for,” he said after a moment of consideration. “You are young, of decent birth, you are not a fortune hunter—plainly not—and you deem the company of a child suitable. I have no more requirements for a wife of mine. The convenience of being in my house, already dressed for the occasion, is of course, a plus.”
“You… you have no familial obligations to weigh?”
“No,” he said bluntly.
“I see.” Her gaze dropped to the raw place beside her thumbnail, then lifted, and for one unguarded second, he let his eyes travel the whole of her, voluptuous bosom to collarbone to the stubborn set of her chin, before he remembered himself. Her entire body looked tight, as though she was an instant from throwing herself to her feet.
The only thing he did not know was whether she would throw herself at him in gratitude, or if she would throw herself out of the house because he had most certainly overstepped.
“Must I give my answer instantly?” she asked.
That took him back. “No, of course not. You may have time to consider my proposal,” he put in instead. That seemed wholly reasonable under the circumstances. “A week should serve.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t need so long—” she said hurriedly; too fast that a pink blush colored her cheeks at her eagerness, and he thought of her cousin’s house and exactly what pride cost a woman with nowhere else to go.
And yet she still desired time to think his offer through. No, she was most certainly not a fortune-hunter.
“The offer will stand for that long, nevertheless. Not a minute more after midnight Saturday. I look forward to your answer.” He nodded once and rose, ringing the bellpull. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
She opened her mouth, and he had the bizarre thought that she might demand once more that he accept the dress. But, to his relief, she merely said, “No, sir. I think—I have everything I need.”
CHAPTER THREE
Isadora had known almost before the words left his mouth that refusing him was impossible.
A duke.
She had spent years being measured against prettier cousins, wealthier dowries, and younger girls making their first bows into society while she quietly slipped further into the category of poor relation. Marriage had ceased to be a romantic prospect long ago. It had become a narrowing corridor, one everyone else seemed determined to close before she reached it.
And now a duke had looked straight at her and declared hersuitable.
Suitable! The word should have sounded bloodless. Instead, it warmed her all the way down to her toes.
Still, some ceremony must be preserved.
Had she accepted on the spot, he might have guessed how little stood between her and disaster. He mistook her for a baron’s daughter suffering a temporary misfortune. He knew nothing of the years Isadora spent wearing her cousins’ discarded gowns, taking the poorest chair by the fire, and hearing every kindness described as though it had cost the Chesters blood. Even before that, she had been the middle child, always destined to be overlooked and forgotten.
Yet, as arbitrary as his reasons were, the duke had chosen her.
The moment Winchester House disappeared behind the lime trees, Isadora clutched her carpet bag to her chest and spun in the road, laughing until the hedges and her horrid yellow skirts blurred together into one long streak of color.
