Page 72 of The Duchess’ Second Chance

“I won’t marry you, Lord Oakwell. I can’t believe you’d even ask,” she said. “Don’t you think such a thing would reflect badly on you? Showing a willingness to walk down the aisle with a lady who already rejected you once?”

“I never asked you to marry me,” Lord Oakwell corrected her. “Oh, I’m sure that’s what your father had in mind when he let me know what was going on, but I happen to agree with your opinion on this. I think it would reflect very poorly on me to give you a second chance at something you chose to throw away, and I have no interest in doing so.”

“Well, then…I’m glad we agree.” But she was confused. Had he only brought her out here to taunt her? “I’m going to go back inside now.” She started in that direction.

“Hold on,” he objected. “I just want to talk to you, Lady Amanda. You can do me the courtesy of a conversation, after everything.”

“You can do me the courtesy of respecting my proper title.”

“All right, Your Grace.” But there was no respect in the way he said it. It was as if he found the whole thing amusing. “I just thought that if the duke was so failing in his duties that you’re already thinking of annulling the marriage, perhaps you and I might reach another arrangement. One with mutual benefits.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t want to marry me, nor I you,” he said. “But the duke has disappointed you. Perhaps you wouldn’t feel the need for an annulment if you had another man to keep you happy, quietly, on the side. No one would need to know. In fact, it would benefit the both of us if no one did. You could have the happiness you deserve and clearly long for, and I could have a bite of the apple that all of London seems to be talking about.” He reached out and touched her cheek.

She flinched. “Are you offering me an affair?”

“We could call it whatever you would like.”

She had read enough to understand the broad brushstrokes of what he was suggesting. Betrayal. Intimacy. Scandal, if they were ever discovered.

“I wouldn’t go near you if you were the last man on earth,” she told him coldly, and tried to brush past him.

He reached out and caught her wrist in a grip that was so firm it hurt. “You watch your mouth,” he snapped at her.

She whirled back toward him and struck him as hard as she could across the face, causing him to drop her arm, and then she turned and fled back in the direction of the house.

CHAPTER 36

“What do you mean, Lord Oakwell is here?” Sampson whirled around, scanning the room for him. “I would have seen him if he was. I would have noticed him at dinner.”

“Well, I don’t think he came to dinner,” Nathaniel said darkly. “But he’s here, all right. A few people have mentioned seeing him.”

“We most certainly did not invite him,” Dorothy chimed in. “Neither of us want anything to do with that terrible man, and I wouldn’t have put him in proximity to you and Amanda, either, after everything that’s happened. I think what happened is that he must have snuck in with some of the other guests, and then made himself scarce during the meal so that he wouldn’t be noticed. It makes perfect sense.”

“But why would he come here at all, knowing that he isn’t wanted?” The question sent a prickle down Sampson’s spine. He sensed the answer was one he wasn’t going to like.

Dorothy sighed. “I can only imagine that he came to speak to Amanda,” she said. “It’s widely known that he’s unhappy with what happened at the wedding ceremony, of course. He was made a fool of.”

“He was a fool before that,” Sampson snapped. “He didn’t need anyone’s help making him a fool. And where is Amanda, anyway?”

He heartily regretted his suggestion to part company with her. Knowing that Lord Oakwell was around was rather like knowing there was a dangerous animal on the premises, and without keeping close, he was not going to be able to protect Amanda from the animal’s fangs and claws.

She can take care of herself, he tried to reassure himself. She’s strong and clever.

But Lord Oakwell was known for his fits of anger. That would be a bad thing for Amanda to encounter on her own.

If he dares to lay a hand on her, he’ll regret the day he was born. The thought was sudden and sharp and surprising. He had never been so stirred to anger before, not even during the war. But the thought of anyone harming Amanda was at once unbearably painful and horribly offensive. His hands balled into fists at his sides as he contemplated it.

“We ought to find her.” There was concern in Dorothy’s voice as well. “If she’s with him, she might not be safe.”

But another thought had come to Sampson. “Unless…you don’t think she would have gone with him willingly, do you?”

“What?” Dorothy frowned. “What sense does that make?”

None, if you don’t know that her marriage to me has been rocky. And they had agreed not to tell. “I suppose I just think she might be…curious about the path not taken,” he said. “What might have happened if she’d chosen a marriage to him. If he’s come here to talk to her about that, she might have decided it’s worth her time to have the conversation. And if that is what she wants to do, it’s not for me to stand in her way. I ought to let her speak to him. We should just…make sure they’re somewhere we can see them, so that we know she is safe. But once that has been established I’m just as happy to let them carry on a conversation.”

“I can’t believe you would do that,” Nathaniel said.