“You cannot mean—”
“I have spoken with Lord Willingham,” he interrupted. “He is under the impression you have been ill this past sennight, and he sends his regards along with his wish for a swift recovery. However, he is most eager to make you his bride, and I have accepted his offer on your behalf. The two of you shall be married in two months’ time.”
“No!” The shout emerged from her before she could squelch it, as if her denial of his words would somehow render them unspoken or any less true.
Fear ran through her, swift and fierce.Dear God, her father could not have agreed she would wed Willingham after she had been ruined by the earl’s illegitimate half brother, the owner of a gaming hell…it was not possible. But as she searched his features, she realized the ugly, awful truth. She had ruined herself to escape an unwanted marriage, and yet she had been too foolish to make certain everyone knew.
She ought to have attended the masque as herself, shouting her name to anyone who asked. Proclaiming her love for Duncan Kirkwood. Making certain the entire assembly watched as she left hand-in-hand with him, as if they were old lovers. She should not have gone quietly with Benedict, who she had supposed would protect her out of a sense of sibling solidarity. She should not have left that chamber at all.
“Yes, my lady,” her father said calmly. “You will be wedded to the Earl of Willingham in two months’ time. He will be calling upon you tomorrow to take you for a drive. You will be awaiting him, a welcoming smile on your lips. You have disgraced this family enough, and you will not, by God, do so again.”
“If I refuse to leave my chamber, what will you do?” Perhaps she possessed more daring than was wise, for the question had fled her lips before she could rethink the wisdom of it. “If I deny his suit? Refuse to marry him?”
“You will find yourself on the street, forced to live your life as the doxy you have become.”
One sentence. A handful of words. And they had the impact of a blade, stabbing her straight in the heart. Here before her was a man who had never cared for her. It was brutally apparent. Little wonder her mother sought solace in shopping.
“You would disown me because I refuse the suitor you have chosen for me?” she asked, her voice trembling with emotion she did not dare release. Not now. Not before him. She would not have him see her weak.
“I am doing what is best for you, my lady,” he told her coolly. “One day, when you are the Duchess of Amberley, you will offer me your thanks.”
She stood. “That day will never come to pass. I bid you good day, Your Grace.”
With another halfhearted attempt at a curtsy, she fled.
His ominous warning followed her. “You will accept Willingham tomorrow, and you will be grateful, biddable, and kind.”
Frederica did not answer, intent upon her escape.
It was not until she reached the haven of her chamber that her legs gave way and she collapsed to the floor in a heap of skirts and misery. Duncan Kirkwood had exchanged her entire life—her future, her happiness, her wellbeing,her heart—for a handful of gambling notes. For as long as she lived, she would never forgive him.
*
Duncan did notordinarily drink himself to oblivion. In fact, his drink of choice was a warm cup of chocolate spiced with anise and a hint of cinnamon. Entirely innocent. Something more suited to an overindulgent, cosseted wife of a lord, he knew. Not the drink of a man who had clawed his way out of the gutters using nothing but his determination, his fists, and his ruthlessness. But at the moment, none of that mattered.
Indeed, nothing at all mattered, for he was drinking his fine Scottish whisky from the bottle as if it were mother’s milk. He swallowed down another burning dram, closing his eyes.
But even with his lids lowered on the familiar opulence of his study, he saw her.
The liquor did not make him forget. Frederica was everywhere.
She haunted him like the most vicious wraith. An entire month had passed since he had last seen her pale face lingering in the window at Westlake House. Since he had kissed her. Touched her. Claimed her. Since he had made her his.
Nay, she was not his.
She would never be his, for he had forfeited that right.
He had traded her for the stack of vowels on the desk before him. He blew out a breath of self-loathing and opened his eyes to the sight of Amberley’s scrawl on the documents that would leave the duke destitute. He’d possessed them for a month and had yet to do a damn thing about them.
Because obtaining them had not changed him. It had not left him feeling fulfilled or triumphant. Obtaining the I.O.U.s of his wastrel father did not bring back his mother. It did not ameliorate the senseless horror of her murder. Nor did it assuage the guilt that threatened to swallow him whole.
He had taken Lady Frederica Isling’s innocence, and though she had offered it to him, he had done so with avarice, using her as a pawn. Betraying her trust to her father. Leaving her behind, a lamb for the slaughter. He had become the man who sired him, driven by his own selfish wants and needs, willing to commit any sin to gain what he desired.
He drained some more of the bottle. The vowels remained, mocking him. Alongside them, he had all the bits of her he had thieved, two pairs of spectacles, a false mustache, three hair pins, and the page from her manuscript. More than once, he had held the foolscap to his nose, hoping for the fleeting scent of violets.
A knock sounded at his door. Likely a servant attempting to bring him supper, and he wanted none. He preferred whisky as his sustenance. Tipping the bottle back, he ignored the interruption.
Another rap came. “Sir,” the muffled voice of his butler, Pretty, arrived not long after, splitting the silence. “His Grace the Duke of Whitley is here to see you. He demands admittance.”
