Page 5 of Kathryn

But no. He had to take a Dutch bride.

He gritted his teeth.

Lady Mariska was his third betrothed, not including Christina the bitch, his first wife.

He had never even met the other two women as one had died at the age of seven-and-ten and the other had eloped with her music tutor at eight-and-ten. Gerrit was the least superstitious person he knew, but even he could not help feeling that any betrothal to him was doomed to failure.

After the catastrophic debacle of his first marriage—which his father had arranged—Gerrit had added two iron-clad stipulations to their family’s longstanding tradition. First, the woman in question must be no younger than one-and-twenty at the time of their marriage.

And second, he wanted a letter from her, not her parent or guardian, agreeing to the union and denying any outstanding emotional entanglements.

This current betrothal had progressed with almost suspicious ease. He had written one letter to Lady Mariska—assuring her that he would only marry her if she gave her written consent—and had received a brief missive from her in the affirmative.

An unpleasant sensation began to creep through him like a slow-moving chill. It took him a moment to identify the emotion: It was indecision.

Gerrit loathed feeling uncertain and took every measure to avoid it by arranging his life with such rigid precision that snap decisions were rarely required. In Gerrit’s life, there were no what ifs or maybes. Things just were.

Until tonight.

His uncle edged so close that Gerrit flinched away when the other man’s elbow brushed against him.

“What do you want?” Gerrit asked irritably. There was enough moon that he could leave for home tonight if he left right now. He could—

“She has come all this way and you have waited all these years. Why not go to Lady Mariska, Your Grace? Talk to her—be… gentle.”

Gerrit bristled. “Be gentle? What do you take me for, some sort of ravening beast?”

“No, no, no. Of course not. I meant no offence, Your Grace.”

Gerrit turned to Lady Palmer, pinning her with a glare. “Is that her concern? That I am a beast?”

“Oh no, Your Grace! Not at all,” she warbled, her eyes huge.

“She is not afraid of you,” his uncle chimed in.

Gerrit saw nothing on the other man’s cherubic face to calm the nausea roiling in his stomach. Why could people not speak honestly and directly? Why were van Renesse’s blue eyes—eyes that were so like Gerrit’s mother’s—flickering about as nervously as a cat’s tail?

“He should go to her, shouldn’t he, Lady Palmer?” van Renesse prodded.

“Er, yes,” the Palmer woman affirmed, once again sounding less than convincing.

“Damnation! I would have the truth from you, ma’am,” Gerrit ground out. It made him ill to think of marrying another woman who did not want him, but he should at least speak to her. Shouldn’t he? Or would that be badgering her?

“Y-yes,” Lady Palmer said. “Yes,” she repeated, slightly more convincing. “You should speak to her, Your Grace. I left her in the garden in a quiet spot. You can talk privately,” she added when Gerrit continued to stare. As much as he disliked meeting other people’s eyes, once he locked onto them, he found it difficult to break away.

Only when the woman lowered her gaze was Gerrit free to glance at his watch. It was seventeen minutes until eleven o’clock. He had wasted forty-seven minutes at this tedious function. Fifty-one minutes if one counted the time he had spent in the receiving line before gaining entrance to the ballroom.

Damnation.

“Where is she?” he barked.

Lady Palmer—as well as several people clearly eavesdropping on their conversation—jumped. “On a stone bench in the rose garden, Your Grace.”

Without another word, Gerrit pivoted on his heel and strode toward the French doors.

“Wait, Your Grace!”

Gritting his teeth, he swung around at his uncle’s voice. “What?”