“He gave me no choice.” Her countenance was strained and strangely expressionless, as if she had trained herself to show no emotion. “The same is true for you, is it not?”
Yes, but not in the way she no doubt assumed.
“I owe my uncle a debt,” he said simply, forgetting about the reverence he was to feign for his supposed uncle. “This will repay it.”
Oh, how his tongue stuck on that word, on that lie.Uncle.
Despicable bastardwould have felt truer, better.
“I am sorry.”
Her apology, simple and stark, took him by surprise. Why should she offer contrition to him? Not only was he deceiving her, but he had also been sent to callously impregnate her. To bed her until she was increasing or until the month was over, whichever came first.
She knew the latter, if not the former.
He swallowed. “I am as well.”
He struggled to find the proper words. He had courted a woman before, but he had been in love with her. She had become his wife. He had loved Amelia desperately. And then, Amelia had died after Arthur’s birth, leaving him with his grief and a beloved child who would leave him too soon also.
Everyone in his life either failed him or left him. He had accustomed himself to that bleak reality.
But he did not know how to woo a woman he did not care for. One who was married to his father, for Chrissakes. Somehow, the notion of what he was bound to do had been indistinct before. Now, he was faced with a living, breathing woman, and the reality settling upon him was akin to a boulder upon his chest.
“Perhaps we should begin again,” the duchess suggested, taking him by surprise. “It would seem we are on common ground. Shall we start anew as friends?”
Friends.
He had not had a friend since Amelia.
Something inside Adrian’s chest shifted. Some ice which had been frigid and immovable there melted, just a bit.
“Friends,” he agreed.
Chapter 2
If you desire more information concerning the reward of ten thousand pounds, to be offered upon the satisfactory conclusion of the arrangement which I previously described, I request that you join myself and Her Grace, the Duchess of Longleigh at my estate in Derbyshire. It is called Coddington Hall. I have enclosed funds for the purchase of passage by train and some suitable garments…
~letter from the Duke of Longleigh to Mr. Adrian Hastings
She had not imagined he would be handsome.
Nor had she supposed he would be charming. That he would make her laugh. That he would give her a fluttery sensation in her belly when she heard his low, mellifluous voice, when he flashed her that crooked, charming smile.
But Mr. Robin Carstairs was, undeniably, a beautiful man. A strong jaw, a divot in his chin, wide, full lips, prominent cheekbones, and golden-brown hair that was long enough to run one’s fingers through the sleek locks. His smile wooed her. His quip about poetry being the currency of lovesick swains when they sat down for dinner had made her chuckle.
Mayhap it was the ever-replenished glass of wine beside her plate. Maybe it was simply the dashing stranger sharing the table with her. Whatever the cause, in the wake of her tentative tea truce with Mr. Carstairs and Longleigh’s departure from Coddington Hall, it was as if a pall had unexpectedly been lifted. She had dressed with care for dinner this evening, affording extra time for her lady’s maid to style her hair, choosing her favorite gown, a burgundy silk that hugged her figure, trimmed with blonde lace and glass beads.
She did not know why.
But if she was going to do this…if she was going to take this man as her lover so she could become a mother, then she needed to take herself, Mr. Carstairs, and the next month quite seriously.
“You are frowning,” Mr. Carstairs observed. “Have I displeased you?”
His concern was pleasantly unfamiliar. Only one other man—the Earl of Sinclair—had treated her with such care. Longleigh certainly did not give a damn about her feelings.
Or her.
“You have not displeased me at all,” she hastened to reassure her dinner companion. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”
