How appropriate, because he had sold his soul to the devil, and part of that bargain involved a great deal of iniquity.
He remembered himself and bowed. “Your Grace.”
“Mr. Carstairs.”
Her acknowledgment was cool, the unfamiliar surname a much-needed cue that she did not know who he truly was, that she must not. That this entire affair was a falsehood just as his life had been. The final humiliation he would face to find his freedom.
Only, standing in her presence now, the next month suddenly did not seem like a punishment so much as a pleasure.
“Call me Robin,” he invited her, reminding himself of his new identity for the purpose of this ruse.
He was posing as Robin Carstairs, legitimate nephew of the Duke of Longleigh, a gentleman who had been reared gently, born on the right side of the blanket. A man of wealth and nobility. A man who was willing to engage in this salacious affair as a debt of gratitude to the uncle he so revered.
What tripe.
The only person the Duke of Longleigh had ever given a damn about was himself.
Eh, mayhap that was another manner in which they were similar. Circumstances had forced Adrian to only care about himself as well. But before everyone he loved had died, he had not been this way. He had been more than the hardened shell this life had forced him to become…
No.He would not think of that now. Would not think of Amelia, Arthur, his mother. Not when so much was at stake. He would not sully their memories with the sordidness of this business he was bound to conduct.
“Mr. Carstairs,” the duchess said quietly, depositing her teacup and saucer upon the tray before rising. “Forgive me, but I do not think I can be more familiar with you just now.”
His nerve fled him as she drew nearer. She was mesmerizing. Intoxicating.
Intimidating.
Their stations were disparate, though she could not know it. He had spent the last few years working as an assistant to a blacksmith, a task which had not been as loathsome as some of the vocations he had been forced to undertake since he’d been abandoned as a lad.
“I understand,” he forced himself to say. “We shall proceed as it pleases you.”
She frowned, her gaze searching his. “But there is the problem, sir. None of this abomination pleases me in the slightest.”
Well, Christ.
The duchess was not amenable to the arrangement.
Longleigh had never mentioned that salient bit of information. But why would he have done, when it would have potentially hampered his cause? He had told Adrian very little about the reason why such an arrangement was necessary, other than the fact he could not bed his wife. That detail—knowing he would not be bedding the same woman his father had—had rendered what Adrian had agreed to slightly more palatable.
This development, however, was surprising. Adrian was going to have to woo her. Seduce her. He could do everything in his power to keep from getting her with child, but Longleigh had made it clear he would not pay Adrian if there was no proof the bedding in question had occurred. He supposed he could attempt to persuade the duchess to lie, but that would make an already convoluted situation even more disastrously complicated. There was always the chance the duchess would go to the duke with his request, or reveal the truth because she resented being forced into the situation, and Adrian would be left with nothing.
Honesty, he thought, was the way of it. He would be as candid with her as he dared.
“I find myself similarly plagued by the strangeness of this affair,” he admitted.
Truth.
For the last fortnight, he had been awash in torment as he struggled with the incredibly difficult choice. It was a battle between his future security and his sense of honor. Ultimately, he had chosen his future and the freedom ten thousand pounds would afford him in America.
How could he have not?
“It would seem we are both of us in an untenable situation of your uncle’s making,” the duchess said softly.
He hated himself for the deception.By God, she seemed, for all her icy aloofness, like a woman who was trapped in this mire as surely as he had been. What was the reward for her? he wondered. Or was it because she feared her husband’s wrath should she refuse?
“Why have you agreed?” he asked, curious even as he told himself it did not signify.
The less he knew of this woman, and the less he felt for her, the better.
