Page 13 of The Duke's Only Desire

“Ihavea dowry,” she countered, the slap to her pride raising her indignation. “Five hundred pounds is still a great deal of money and far more than most misses bring to a marriage. Andwith your income now, another four hundred a year will allow us to live quite well.”

But Norton wasn’t swayed, just as Shay knew he wouldn’t be. “Why didn’t you tell me this before now?”

“Because you never asked.” Her face fell, and she added softly, “Because I thought you already knew…and didn’t care.”

“No, I didn’t bloody well know.” He turned toward her father. “You hid this from me, Granville.” His voice lowered to a menacing threat. “One way or another, I will have the money I’m owed when I marry your daughter.” He slitted a glance at Shay. “Nothinghas changed. We’re still to be wed as planned.”

“No and no,” Shay commented as casually as if they were discussing something as innocuous as the weather. “No, Lady Sophie will not marry you, and no, you will not receive a penny. You haven’t negotiated a settlement, and with no formal announcement made tonight—”

“Because you interrupted the party tonight before it was made.”

Just in the nick of time.“You have no grounds to sue for reparation to your damaged character because the engagement was never made public, and you have no grounds for breach of contract because you never settled one,” Shay stated bluntly. “So the next time you decide to wed, be certain to iron out the contract before you set the wedding date.”

“You bastard.” Hatred blazed in his eyes. “Go to hell!” He swept his gaze between all of them, including Sophie. “Every one of you.”

Then he flung out a curse so fierce it would have made Lucifer blush and spun on his heel to march out the door. He paused in the hall to cast one final glance back at Shay, his lips curling with disgust. “Go ahead, Sophie, and marry that monster. You’re getting exactly what you deserve.”

Then he was gone.

Sophie stared after him, her hand extended in a futile attempt to stop him. For one long, terrible moment, she was too stunned to react at all, except for a dark mortification that marred her beautiful face.

Then she wheeled around with clenched fists, shaking with anger like a tree in the wind, and demanded of Shay, “Why are you doing this?”

To save you…“To honor the marriage contract your grandmother made with my father.”

She stared at him blankly as if she simply couldn’t understand his words, her lips parted in an expression somewhere between complete bafflement and abhorrence. “No,” she challenged his answer, her eyes glowing as they searched his face. “Whyare you doing this?”

“I took my brother’s life,” he said coldly. “Why shouldn’t I also take his fiancée?”

She gaped at him, stricken. She pressed her hand against her belly as if she fought to keep from casting up her accounts.

“I won’t marry you,” she rasped out in a hoarse whisper. “I’m promised to James. I don’t care what that contract says. Neither does my father. He’ll never make me marry you instead.”

“Granville can’t break the contract,” Shay told her, keeping his face carefully inscrutable. Or at least, the half of it that still showed any emotion. “The penalty is forfeiture of twenty thousand pounds, and your family simply doesn’t have it. It would bankrupt you. Your grandmother and Malvern both knew that when they included that provision. They wanted a poison pill to keep you from behaving exactly like our mothers and running away.”

Her watery eyes sought out her father’s. “Is that true?”

Granville gave a curt nod, then turned his face away. The man was too ashamed to meet his daughter’s gaze.

“You have no choice but to marry me.” Shay announced the ultimatum as softly as the shadows lurking at the edges of the room. “Or I’ll send both you and your father to the poorhouse.”

She stared at him, her head cocked slightly to the side as if desperate to understand something she simply could not fathom. As if desperate to see past the surface and into his soul to find the answers he refused to give.

But she was wasting her time. There was nothing to see beneath his surface. He had long ago lost his soul to the fires.

“I…I truly have no choice?” she whispered, barely louder than a breath. Tears glistened in her eyes and turned the pale blue of summer skies in their depths into savage storm-tossed seas.

He answered in the same low whisper, “No.”

With that single word, he knew he had become nothing more to her than a beast. The monster they all knew him to be. He looked like one, after all. Might as well behave like one.

Reflexively, he shrugged as if he couldn’t give a damn, once again donning the impenetrable armor he’d used so many times before to survive the past five years. No, for even longer than that.

“So go upstairs and pack,” he ordered quietly. “I’ll stay here and work out the settlement with your father. I’ll return for you at nine in the morning to escort you to the church, and we’ll leave for Ravenscroft immediately after the ceremony.”

She didn’t move, resembling one of those Greek statues whose marble skin was alabaster white, hard, cold. A single tear escaped down her cheek, leaving a glistening trail over her pale face. This time, she couldn’t find the strength to even breathe out a whisper and instead could only mouth, “I hate you.”

“Then we’re sure to have a typical society marriage,” he told her.

After all, they had that much in common.I hate myself, too.