They faced each other across the parlor. Evander opened his mouth to respond, but the door swung open.
Harding cleared his throat. “Your Grace. Lord Langham has arrived.”
Lord Langham did not so much enter the parlor as collapse into it. He was sweating through his coat. His cravat, which had been askew at the church, was now missing entirely. He crossed the room in three uneven strides, bowed to Evander with mechanical precision, and pressed both palms flat against his thighs.
“Your Grace, I must apologize for—for all of this. The disruption. My daughter’s presence here is uninvited. The entire—” He swallowed. “Is it true? The child?”
“It is true,” Evander said. “The baby is sleeping upstairs.”
Lord Langham’s face went the color of old parchment. He swayed. Mary caught his arm and guided him to a chair.
“My daughters,” he said. His voice had gone thin. “My daughters will be the death of me. Both of them. First Charlotte, now—” He pressed a trembling hand to his forehead. “We are ruined. Grentport will tell everyone. The ton will tear us apart. This family is finished, Mary. Finished!”
“Papa, breathe.” Mary crouched beside his chair and took his hand. “We are not finished. We will find a way through this.”
“How?” Lord Langham looked up at her with the eyes of a man who had already surrendered. “How, Mary? Tell me how!”
Mary did not answer. She held her father’s hand and pressed her lips together, and Evander saw the weight settle on her shoulders.
It was familiar. He recognized it the way a man recognizes his own reflection.
He thought of the baby upstairs. The way Tommy’s cries had stopped the instant she held him. The sureness in her hands. The tears she had wiped away when she thought no one was watching.
He thought of Godfrey’s words.
A child needs a mother. A wedding would divert the public’s attention.
He thought of Lord Langham, crumpled in the chair, sayingwe are ruined.
He thought of the vow he had made in a dark corridor fourteen years ago, and how easy it had been to keep when the only thing at stake was himself.
Evander exhaled.
He stepped forward.
“Lady Mary.”
She looked up at him from the floor beside her father’s chair. Her hair had come loose on one side. Her wedding dress was creased and dusty at the hem. Her eyes were red but steady.
“We will marry,” he said.
Lord Langham’s mouth fell open. Mary stared at Evander as though he had spoken in a language she did not recognize while sprouting a second head.
“I beg your pardon?” she said.
“You heard me.” Evander clasped his hands behind his back. His voice was level, but his pulse was not. “Tommy needs a mother. Your family needs a name. I need an heir and a way to contain this scandal before it buries us all.” He held her gaze. “We will marry. It is the only solution that serves everyone in this room.”
CHAPTER 3
“Say that again.” Mary stared at the Duke.
The words he had spoken hung in the air between them, strange and sharp-edged, and she waited for him to take them back. Men did not propose marriage to women they had met twenty minutes ago. Men did not propose marriage to women they had spent those twenty minutes arguing with.
She had misheard him. She must have misheard him.
“We will marry,” he said again. His voice carried no warmth, no hesitation. He spoke the way a man might announce a change in the household accounts. “Your family needs protection. This child needs a mother. I need an heir and a means of containing the scandal before it destroys both our names. A marriage between us solves every problem in this room.”
Lord Langham shot to his feet. Color flooded his cheeks for the first time all morning, and his eyes went wide like a man whohas spotted land after weeks at sea. “Your Grace, we accept. Of course, we accept. This is—this is the most generous, the most?—”
