Most definitely not withhim.
“You think to marry me off to this…this…old man?” Piper managed to temper the far worse epitaph on her tongue, though she couldn’t resist freeing her hand from the duke’s grip.
Celeste’s smooth, ivory complexion grew mottled with blotches of unflattering crimson. The duke, on the other hand, stilled like a pale marble statue but for the tiniest boost of one brow.
Piper bit her lip to stifle a yelp as her mother pinched the tender flesh at the back of her arm. A favorite punishment of hers, painful yet rarely leaving a visible mark. Piper should have known better than to stay close at hand. “My apologies, your grace. My daughter is out of sorts.”
“Your daughter is in mourning for Sedmouth,” Piper retorted. “As this entire house should be.”
“You will hold your tongue, you wretched fool,” Celeste hissed under her breath and pinched harder. The duke’s brow notched up further, though he offered not a word. “I would expect you to be suitably honored if the duke were inclined to propose such a union. However, he has not.”
“He hasn’t?” A flush of shame warmed her cheeks. Her rudeness knew no bounds. She shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. In her defense, having been summoned and paraded before the duke, Piper considered her assumption a logical one.
“His grace has requestedmyhand in marriage.”
The news dumbfounded Piper even more. It took a moment to blink away her incredulity. For years, speculation of Celeste’s calculated coercion of first Aylesbury and then Sedmouth had spread as thick as jam on a fresh scone. That a man of the duke’s repute could be gulled into voluntarily falling into her well-known mechanizations for greater title and wealth was astonishing.
She glanced at Rutledge, biting back the urge to ask what possessed him. “You have?”
“Indeed, I have,” the duke drawled, then offered the reason himself. “On the condition…”
“We are both to have a title in the bargain, darling.” Celeste fluttered her lashes at Rutledge with false lightheartedness. “Isn’t that wonderful? For us both? I will be the duchess for now and then someday, you will inherit the same title. It is an incredible oppor—” She shot a glance at the duke. “Rather, an incredible honor his grace does us both.”
Of course. Piper nearly laughed at the admission. Celeste did nothing that she didn’t benefit from herself. She’d have herself a handsome, if heartless, duke and the title to go with it while leaving her daughter to…
The reality of the deal at hand struck her then. To gain the title of Duchess of Rutledge one day, she’d have to be the wife of the duke’s son. And as far as she knew, he had exactly one.
If the thought of wedding the duke had her in shudders, contemplating the alternative nearly sent her into a swoon. If Rutledge were the king of debauchery, his son Milford Waldegrave, Viscount Dormer, was the crown prince. Tales of his moral depravity bordered on the criminal, and there was talk that disease stemming from his exploits had rendered him half-mad. She’d heard that he’d brutalized and ruined a highborn young lady, first denying it then later boasting of his evil deed.
Piper did not know whatbrutalizedentailed, nor did she care to. All she knew was that Rutledge had consigned his son to his country estate under guard after the scandal had broken.
No decent mother would allow her daughter within a mile of him.
Hermother wanted her only daughter to marry him.
“I will not.” Her vehement rejection surprised them all. Herself included. Once vocalized, Piper had no intention of recanting her refutation. Without maternal protection on her side, she had to speak out.
The duke’s brow, already elevated, rose to greater heights. Celeste’s reaction was not as composed. Her forehead and mouth creased into deep, unattractive grooves that her mother would have been horrified by. Jaw clenched, she managed a stilted, “Duke, would you allow me a moment alone with my daughter?”
“I think not, my lady,” the duke answered contrarily, crossing his arms over his chest. “I find myself intrigued to hear your daughter’s rationale on the matter.”
Agape, with no idea how to rebuke such an open denial to what had obviously been a rhetorical request, her mother vacillated between continuing on and an utter stupefaction that would have provided Piper a fair amount of merriment at any other time. She did enjoy seeing her mother silenced for any reason and took the opportunity to step out of reach of her mother’s pinching fingers.
“You were saying?” he prompted.
Piper’s moment of triumph slipped away at the emotional void in his eyes. She swallowed the lump growing at the back of her throat. “I have no wish to wed at this time, your grace.”Especially not to someone like the viscount,she refrained from adding aloud. She did, however, feel compelled to inform him, “Nor does my mother have the right to contract a union on my behalf.”
“I have every right.” Celeste cast an anxious glance and gaunt smile at Rutledge. “I am your mother.”
Adamant, Piper shook her head. “But not my guardian. Even Sedmouth could not have arranged a marriage for me, your grace, nor could I accept any offers,” she assured him. “Not without the permission of the Marquis of Aylesbury.”
“What makes you think your brother hasn’t given it?” her mother bit out, before forcing another smile for the duke’s sake.
“He wouldn’t.” Piper clasped the conviction close to her heart. Her dear brother would never be so cruel. Couldn’t be.
Yet, Harry wasn’t here as he’d promised to be. He hadn’t come to whisk her away from the nightmare of life with Celeste, again, as he’d promised. He’d done none of the things he’d sworn to do.
Her mother picked at the fraying threads of her faith. “He did. Wholeheartedly. He came and left from Sedmouth’s funeral without asking once to see you and offered his approval for the match. He wants nothing more to do with you than I.”
