“If I am to marry you, I will be Duchess of Heathmare,” she reminded him. “And when that day comes, I don’t imagine you’ll expect me to bite my tongue in your presence. Although, if thatissomething you expect, perhaps you should say so right here and now, so that we can be sure we’ll be able to tolerate one another.”
“Now you suggest I’m intolerable?”
“Clearly you were raised to think that ladies can’t read,” she said.
His face darkened. “I didn’t say ladiescan’tread, I said they oftendon’t. That’s hardly my fault. And you can be as feisty as you’d like, but don’t you dare try to speak about my upbringing. You know nothing about that.”
Perhaps he was right, but she wasn’t in the mood to offer apologies. “You started this by questioning my ability to pick up a book,” she reminded him. “Maybe we should start over.”
He huffed out a sigh and turned his back on her. “Or maybe we’ve been too hasty here,” he grumbled. “I know we both want to make a good marriage, but maybethismarriage isn’t the right thing… for either of us.”
He turned and began to walk away.
A stab of cold fear shot through Susan. “Wait,” she managed.
He stopped and turned to face her, unspeaking.
He was going to make her say it. She hated it. She swallowed hard. “Don’t go,” she said. “I need this. I need this marriage.”
“Surely notthismarriage? You may lack decorum, but you’re young and attractive. There must be plenty of gentlemen whowould marry you.” He raised his eyebrows. She knew better than to take any of that as a compliment.
“I need this marriage,” she said. “I need to marry quickly, because my sister has a suitor, and my father won’t allow her to marry unless I do so first. And I need it to be you, because her man has no title. He’s the younger son of a baron. I have to make a good marriage so that Father will be less strict when it comes to choosing her husband.”
“Ah.” The Duke folded his arms and regarded her. “So you’re only interested in my title.”
“Your title has nothing to do with my interest,” she snapped, even though she knew she had all but told him otherwise. “Idon’t care what title you hold. My interest is in providing for my sister’s future. Marina is in love with a man, and I want her to be able to marry him. That doesn’t happen unless I take the right steps here.”
“And why should I be bothered with any of that?” he asked archly. “I don’t mean to be unsympathetic, Lady Susan, but you can’t expect me to take a wife for your sister’s sake.”
“You had your reasons for wanting to marry,” she said steadily. “You may not like what you’ve seen of me, but surely those reasons still apply.”
He pressed his lips together. “It sounds as if neither of us very much wants to marry the other,” he said. “What we want are the benefits the marriage will gain us.”
“Not an uncommon situation,” she pointed out.
He nodded slowly. “What if there was a way we could have those things without going through with a marriage?”
“That sounds like a fantasy.”
“What if we told your father we wanted a little more time? That it was our intention to marry, but we wanted a longer courtship?” He looked at her appraisingly. “Do you think your father might allow your sister to go ahead and marry if he thought your arrangements had been made, but that we simply wanted to postpone the date?”
“He might,” Susan said slowly. It wasn’t something she had considered before now, but she supposed it was possible. “But how does this help you? I know you only agreed to marry me because you needed to boost your reputation.”
“You know that?”
“My father told me. He said you inherited a title you weren’t prepared for and that you were looking for legitimacy by marrying a respected, known family. He said that even though you’re a duke, our name would be a boon to you.” She smiled wryly. “You’re after me for my title as well, in a sense.”
He huffed out a laugh. “Making public appearances together during our courtship will do that for me.”
“But unless we actually marry, it will all disappear for you, won’t it?”
“I don’t think that’s necessarily true,” he mused. “Especially if your father agrees to become a business partner of mine, which he may if he believes I’m going to marry his most difficult daughter.” He smirked at her.
She refused to take the bait. “I can speak to him about going into business with you,” she said. “I think he might want to do that anyway. A duke as a business partner would be a good thing for him.”
“And if I show him that it’s a good thing for him to be in business with me, I doubt he’d want to break that off even if our engagement falls through,” the Duke said. “He need never know we planned this from the start. Everyone will get what they want. Your sister can marry this man of hers. My name will be established in society. And you and I won’t be forced into an arrangement neither of us really wanted to begin with.”
Susan had to hand it to him. It was a plan that made sense.
