She looked at him then, truly looked. At the icy blue eyes that affixed her and the jet black hair that was combed back neatly. The rigid set of his shoulders, the controlled stillness of him, the way his presence filled the space as though the house itself had adjusted around him.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
He did not answer immediately. Instead, he studied her with unsettling focus. “Why did you spread the rumors?”
Eleanor stiffened. “You already know why.”
“I want to hear it.”
She folded her arms. “Because I thought you would not be here to contradict the rumor. Because I am now considered too old to have a real suitor in the Season. Because I wanted to help my sister.”
“How would a marriage to me help your sister?”
“By making her interesting,” Eleanor said bluntly. “By giving thetonsomething else to look at besides her supposed deficiencies.”
“Well a marriage,” he said, “would accomplish the same.”
She shook her head. “I never intended to marry.”
“Yet you invented an engagement.”
She lifted her chin. “I did what I had to do. You were supposed to stay in the Lake District until next Season passed and I would make up a broken engagement.”
The Duke took a step closer.
Eleanor’s breath caught, entirely against her will.
“You are aware,” he said, “that claims such as yours do not exist in isolation.”
She held her ground. “You could have ignored it.”
“I could not,” he replied. “Which is why I am here. Do you expect for thetonto withhold their gossip and believe your story without my appearance at evenoneevent?”
She frowned. “If you intend to force me–”
“I do not,” he interrupted. “I am giving you a choice.”
Eleanor laughed once, sharp and incredulous. “You arrive unannounced, terrify my family, declare your intention, and call it a choice?”
“Yes.”
She stared at him. “You are impossible.”
“Perhaps,” he said with a lifted eyebrow. “But I am not dishonest.”
He moved closer again, stopping just short of invading her space. The heat of his proximity, the way her thoughts scatteredtraitorously, it was all entirely so new and foreign, and she wanted more of it.
“You do not wish to marry me,” he said. “Very well. You may refuse.”
Her heart hammered.
“I will expect a letter of rejection by tomorrow before luncheon,” he continued. “Written by your own hand. Delivered to Langford House.”
Eleanor blinked. “Tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“And if I do not?”
