Page 4 of The Duchess Debt

Well, she might be exactly that, but she still had her pride, even if tattered and bruised. And she refused be treated this way a moment longer.

She turned toward Gabriel. “Is that what this meeting is about, to belittle and humiliate me?” Her hands fisted at her sides to keep from ripping the pages away from Mr. Putnam. She wanted to tear them to shreds! “Is that why you brought me all the way here, to prove that I’m still not good enough to be your duchess?” Her chest squeezed painfully, and she choked as she asked in a low and rasping voice, “Hadn’t you already made that clear enough five years ago when you left me to marry an earl’s daughter?”

Gabriel rose slowly to his feet. His eyes flashed, but his controlled expression gave away not one hint of his thoughts.“Mr. Putnam, would you see to Miss Sinfell’s coachman, to make certain he knows the way to Grangely Park?”

The befuddled, and now red-faced, solicitor nodded and scurried toward the door, obviously grateful to be away. Then he remembered the sheath of papers he still held in his hands. Muttering a string of apologies, he hurried back to drop them onto the desk, then darted like a frightened hare toward the hall and escape.

“And please close the door,” Gabriel added, his hazel eyes not leaving Helena. “I would like a moment alone with my fiancée.”

Fiancée. The word sparked heat through her even though the way he said it contained no warmth or affection, no hint whatsoever that they had once been in love. She cursed herself for letting him prick at her heart when he’d already irreparably destroyed the thing five years ago.

Straightening her spine in readiness for battle, she nodded after Mr. Putnam. “You didn’t have to send him away. Surely, he learned all about our past when he put that list together for you.”

With an inscrutable twist of his lips, Gabe crossed to a side table by the bookcase to help himself to a glass of brandy. “Putnam knows nothing about you except that you are an old friend from my London days who has agreed to marry me.” He picked up the decanter and muttered, “Although I daresay, he now knows a great deal more.”

Her face flushed with a heat that surely glowed scarlet in her cheeks.

He pulled out the stopper. “And I did not invite you here to humiliate you. Your father offered marriage, and I accepted. That’s why you are here. It’s as simple as that.”

No even close! “Why did you accept?”Why come back into my life after all these years? Why did you jilt me in the first place?

He didn’t look at her as he splashed the caramel-colored liquid into the glass. “Because I’m in need of a wife, and I’m too old prowl among the misses at Almack’s.”

She heard his distaste for the idea in the soft thud of the bottle returning to the tabletop. Yet she also heard not one hint of remorse for what he’d done to her five years ago.

Pushing down her anger, she gestured at the cluttered office around them. “What was the point of subjecting me to all this, then?”

“The engagement was made long distance, and there wasn’t time to hammer out the details of our marriage contract. So we’re doing it now.”

She bit back a laugh. “This is your idea of a marriage contract?” Her voice quavered so strongly that she worried it might break. “Dozens of rules to keep me in line, right down to my wedding dress?”

“No. To protect you from unscrupulous businessmen.”

She coolly arched a brow yet couldn’t find the strength to speak louder than a hoarse whisper. “And who protects me from you?”

CHAPTER TWO

Gabe’s hand froze in mid-air as he returned the stopper. That wasn’t a question; it was an accusation. Yet he didn’t blame her. After all, he’d given her good reason to doubt him.

But damnation, did she have to keep staring at him as if he were Lucifer himself?

“Things went badly between us last time,” he acknowledged quietly.

“You jilted me,” she stated bluntly, not bothering to soften her words, “on the morning of our wedding while I was waiting in the rear of the church for you to arrive. You sent James Wentworth, of all people, to tell me you weren’t coming.” Restrained anger and tears roughened her voice. “Two days later you married someone else.”

“I know what happened.” He hoped his icy tone was clear. He would give no further explanation for his actions that morning, now or ever. “Which is why we should agree to the rules up front.”

“But I don’t trust you.”

“You don’t have to.” He faced her and lifted the glass to his lips. “You just have to marry me.”

Doing his best to ignore the way she gaped at him, Gabe twisted a grim smile down at his glass. Leave it to Helena to confront him like this. She always was more confident and direct than other society misses.

Apparently, some things never changed.

He gestured toward the papers with his glass. “You’ll find that the documents Putnam has created are meant to protect both of us. They’re a safeguard in the event that something goes wrong with our engagement.”

Andin the event that something went wrong with their marriage. He wouldn’t tolerate being made a fool of by a woman ever again.