“Please don’t say marriage,” she said. “You told me I could have another Season to find a match on my own.”
“That was before I found you spread out in front of the Duke of Roseford, ready to become another of his whores,” her father snapped, and his hand lifted as if to strike.
Katherine flinched from the violence. She’d felt it enough. Today, though, he didn’t swing but lowered his hand slowly. “I’ve been speaking lately with the Earl of Gainsworth. Your uncle’s friend.”
Katherine’s mouth dropped open. “He is twenty-five years my senior, Papa! Older than you.”
“And that is what you need. A man that will give you no quarter, will grant you no room for your wicked desires. A pious man like me.”
Katherine shook her head. She’d seen the Earl of Gainsworth at parties. Despite his advanced years, he wasn’t exactly unattractive, and the way he looked at women her age could scarcely be seen as pious, no matter how much he gave to the church or spoke to her father like he was an acolyte.
“Please don’t,” she whispered. “Give me a little more time, Papa.”
He pursed his lips. “No. The time is up, my dear. I need to arrange this before your worst impulses are known to the world. Before they are out of hand and I lose all control over you. I will go to the man tomorrow and sign the betrothal. I will see you married to him before another fortnight has passed.”
She flew to the opposite side of the carriage, catching both Montague’s hands in her own as she cried out, “Please, Papa, no!”
He shook her away and looked at her with pure disgust and distain. Then he folded his arms. “It will be done, Katherine. There is nothing that could be said that could change my mind. You will be brought to heel and this marriage will do it. One way or another.”
Chapter One
Fall 1812
Robert Smithton, Duke of Roseford, looked out over the ballroom floor with disinterest. He’d never enjoyed this exercise in exhibition, but as of late it had become almost unbearable. He felt his mouth turn down even lower as he looked at the couples bobbing about the floor. Friends of his, many of them with happy brides in their arms.
Once upon a time, he would have said those men had thrown away their freedom. But it was hard to feel that way now when their joy was so clear. So sharp. Like a knife to the gut.
“What are you brooding about?”
Robert jumped and turned to find three of those very friends standing at his elbow. The Dukes of Abernathe, Crestwood and Northfield. James, Simon and Graham respectively, because the titles were so damned tedious.
It was Graham who had spoken, and he handed over a drink for Robert with a grin. Robert refused to return the expression. “Who says I’m brooding?”
He took a slug of the drink and found it watered down, indeed. God, he would be happy when the Season was over. When his friends would retreat back to their estates and their frustrating contentment and he would be left to prowl and dive into all the darkness that kept the pain away.
“I’m an expert,” Graham retorted, but then another grin brightened his face. Robert was warmed by it. Just two short years ago, his friend would not have smiled so easily. Love did that, it seemed. “Or I used to be.”
“Ha,” Robert grumbled, winking at the men so his ill humor would not be perceived as a slight. “As if any of you are experts in anything anymore. I am the last bachelor.”
Simon let out a long laugh that turned more than one interested female head. Not that he noticed. He only had eyes for his wife, just as all the others did. “You are not the last bachelor.”
“There’s Kit,” James said with a shake of his head. While he smiled, Robert felt his concern just below the surface. James had always been the King of the Dukes. Robert had always been his most troublesome subject.
“Kit?” he repeated with a snort of derision. “He is a saint—he hardly counts. No, it is left to me to sow all the wild oats for all of youoldmarried men.”
Now all three men looked concerned and Robert began to calculate how quickly he could make a run for it.
“Aren’t youtiredof it all?” James asked, his tone soft, all teasing departed.
Robert tensed and looked out at the glittering ball without answering. He couldn’t answer, at least not without gathering himself first. He didn’t want them to see, he didn’t want them to know, to hear it in his voice that James was right. Hewastired of all of it.
Once upon a time he used to take such pleasure in…well…pleasure. All the parts of it, anticipation to orgasm. But now, now he went through the motions. It was rote. Expected. He was never fully satisfied, even when the experiences were passionate. And if he stopped, he feared the reasons why would catch up to him, overtake him.
He certainly didn’t want to face them. What his friends had found was not for him. It didn’t exist and he didn’t want it. That kind of intimacy was not something he wished to share with any other human being.
“You believe everyone’s path must take them to where you are,” he said at last, because it was clear they were waiting for some kind of answer. “Just because mine hasn’t and won’t doesn’t mean I am tired of it.”
James caught a breath like he was ready to argue that point, but before he could, another man approached. The Marquess of Berronburg was not a member of their duke club, and judging from the way James, Simon and Graham all recoiled slightly as he stepped into their midst, he was not about to be invited into the periphery. Robert couldn’t blame them for it. Berronburg was often rude, he imbibed too much and his lechery for women was nearly as legendary as Robert’s.
