“Well, in that case, Your Grace, that only makes me more crucial to your success.”
“Stop calling me that. The honorific. Your Grace.”
“Why would I call you anything else? It’s proper, is it not? Or have I been out of society so long that they changed the rules?”
“I don’t care for the way you say it. Call me something else.”
“That would be untoward. And I can’t help that my contempt for you permeates the typical social forms. There is no alternative. What else would I call you? Edington? I won’t call you Forster.”
“That is what most people called me until recently. It’s what I went by at school.”
“How grotesque.”
“Don’t I know it. If I hadn’t—”
He broke off, seeming to remember where he was and whom he spoke to. Despite herself, she wanted him to finish the sentence. Was there a woman he loved, who had made it all worth it? Suddenly, she had the premonition that this unpleasantness with his father’s will was the last piece of business that stood between him and his marriage to the finest of high-society diamonds. She would be someone he had known since childhood and to whom he had written long letters while away at Eton and Oxford.
“Call me John. I think we can dispense with the pretense of propriety.”
“I will call you what I please.” She was thinking of what his betrothed would look like, how she would simper and wait for his visits to her drawing room. She would call him by the proper honorific. Surely, the duke and this lovely young lady didn’t argue over the details of his vindictive father’s mad will. Nor would they have to stay at opposite ends of the room to keep from tearing each other to pieces. The thought of this little debutante sent a spasm of anger through her body.
“And I want ten thousand pounds, Your Grace.”
“Three.”
She broke eye contact with him and looked, instead, at his mouth. She could read his thoughts there. He couldn’t hide the truth.
“Ten.”
He winced. “Five.”
“Ten.That is my price.”
“That is quite a bit of money.”
“It is.” She gave him her most cheerful smile. “But you aren’t in a position to negotiate, are you, Your Grace?”
“Eight. And that is my last offer.”
Catherine knew he was bluffing. There was no one else for him to turn to, no one else who had a prayer of finding Mary Forster, and certainly no one else living who could appeal to her emotions.
“Ten thousand pounds, Your Grace.”
“Fine.” To her surprise, he smirked. “If you agree to call me John.”
Anger swelled in her chest. She hated him. She hated how he could use his power, his money, to take what he wanted, even from her. She hated how the sight of his face, a quirk of his mouth, could make her innermost muscles clench. She didn’t want to call him by his Christian name. She wanted to put as much distance between them as possible.
Catherine told herself to breathe.
He couldn’t possibly enforce such a ridiculous condition.
He was just trying to irk her.
“Very well.” She worked to look placid, as if calling him by his Christian name meant nothing to her. “But that is not all. I want one thousand upfront.”
“How do I know you won’t disappear?”
“That is what you think of me?”
