“Waring, good to see you again,” Phillip boomed, crossing the room to shake his hand. She cringed at her father’s tactless greeting. He hadn’t even acknowledged the duke’s rank. The duke seemed unfazed, however, stepping forward to shake her father’s hand, even though it looked as if there was little fondness on either side. As he moved, she finally got a good look at the man standing silently behind him—her future husband.
The room seemed to fall silent as her breath caught. He was startlingly handsome, and it was hard to believe she hadn’t seen him until she’d looked for him. A man that attractive didn’t often go unnoticed. He seemed to possess an ability to make himself invisible. They had that much in common, at least.
His black hair was brushed casually off his forehead, a little too long and mussed for fashion, and delightfully free of the usual pomade. His features, nothing like his father’s, were well-defined, with high cheekbones and a gently squared chin. Thick, dark eyebrows arched dramatically over his intense, heavily fringed eyes. Although moustaches and beards were the fashion for men, he was clean-shaven, which she rather liked. Nothing to conceal his lovely face. Under his charcoal suit, he seemed broad-shouldered and well made.
Nothing about him seemed amiss. No hunched back, no open sores, no hacking cough, no sickbed pallor. Quite the opposite of deformed or infirmed, he seemed nearly perfect.
It was too good to be true. The heir to a duke and also unspeakably beautiful. For so long, she’d struggled to avoid thinking about the physical aspects of marriage, since for her, it might have involved Sturridge or someone equally odious. But looking at Lord Dunnley, it wasn’t at all a trial to imagine that part. Perhaps it wouldn’t be a humiliating indignity to be endured. At the moment, surprising as the thought was, she couldn’t imagine disliking anything about submitting to this man’s attentions.
Then Lord Dunnley’s fierce eyes landed on her and she couldn’t breathe. He was so handsome, and to feel his regard on her, to see those eyes looking straight at her, seeming nearly to look inside her, shook her right to her core. The power of it pooled low in her belly. She’d met her share of handsome men, but this immediate and powerful attraction was all new. All her social training fled her as her pulse beat frantically in her throat. As they stood locked in some sort of unspoken communication, she was helpless to do anything but stare at him as he stared back.
His eyes are blue, she thought wildly. They were deep-set and shadowed under his heavy brows, so they’d seemed dark. But he had the most brilliant blue eyes she’d ever seen.
Lord Dunnley’s lips parted slightly and his throat worked as he swallowed. He blinked, as if waking up, and finally tore his gaze away from her. She exhaled, feeling light-headed. She’d been prepared for a bloodless business transaction, not...this. Suddenly she was terrified.
“Waring, come and meet my wife and daughter.” Her father’s voice shook her out of her stupor.
Her mother held out her hand, glittering with oversized rings. “Your Grace, how lovely to meet you,” she purred in her best Society delivery.
“The pleasure’s mine.” The duke said it with no pleasure whatsoever. He gestured to the earl. “The Earl of Dunnley.”
“You are most welcome in our home.” Hyacinth smiled encouragingly, but the duke’s son kept his hands clasped behind his back and didn’t say a word.
“May I present my daughter, Victoria? Victoria, come and welcome His Grace and Lord Dunnley.”
Suppressing a sigh at her mother’s manhandling of what was already an awkward encounter, Victoria stepped forward, determined to get herself in hand and ease the situation.
“Delighted to meet you,” the duke said, sounding no more delighted than he had when he met her mother.
“The delight is mine, Your Grace.” She dropped into a low, perfect curtsy.
“This is Lord Dunnley,” he said, gesturing dismissively toward his son.
It was a curious introduction, but she couldn’t examine it too closely as she braced herself and turned to address him. He’d been scowling at the rug, seeming almost reluctant to raise his head and face her. With a heavy exhale, he finally did, his expression hesitant. It was like an impact to her chest. Her breath was caught somewhere high in her throat, as if her corset had been laced far too tightly. Swooning at his feet was beginning to seem like a real possibility.
“It’s an honor to meet you, My Lord.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
This time, he reached out for her hand. His fingers curled around hers, not the smooth, pale hands of an English gentleman. They felt rough. These hands had done work. Was she really feeling that touch in her fingers, her hand, her entire body? He inclined his head slightly. “The honor is mine, Miss Carson.” His voice was lovely, deep and masculine.
Then he released her and turned his head away again, almost as if he couldn’t bear to look at her too long. Well. Perhaps she was the only one so affected.
She turned to her mother in desperation. “Mother, shall I ring for tea?”
“Oh. Why yes, please do, Victoria. Shall we all sit down and chat?”
Leaving the embarrassing spectacle of her mother fawning over the Duke of Waring behind her, she went to the door to call Mrs. Green and give the order for tea. Before she returned to their guests, she took a moment to close her eyes and breathe. It was going to take every bit of training she possessed to get through today’s meeting with grace.
When Mrs. Green returned with the tea cart, Victoria rejoined her parents and their esteemed guests. It seemed no one had said much of anything in her brief absence. The silence was nearly overbearing. There was only one place left to sit, on the settee with Lord Dunnley, so she lowered herself next to him, leaving a wide berth between them.
She addressed the duke with a smile. “Your Grace, I believe you’ve been in London for the entire Season, have you not?”
“Yes, I have, Miss Carson.”
“Have you not found the weather uncommonly fine this month? It’s been ideal for walking out most mornings. So very unusual for this time of year, don’t you think?”
Waring looked almost surprised at the ease in which she launched into polite conversation.
“It’s been very fine weather for riding,” he acknowledged grudgingly.
Summoning her courage, she turned to his son. “And have you enjoyed the Season in London as well, My Lord?”
He gave her a baffled stare. “I have not been in London at all this Season. I’ve been in Italy for some time.”
“Italy? Indeed. How fascinating. I’ve always wanted to visit Italy, but I haven’t yet had the opportunity. I’ve heard it’s incomparable. Would you care for tea?”
* * *
Andrew watched Miss Carson pour tea with enviable poise as she chatted about the weather and Italy and he reeled. He’d expected some brash, uncouth heiress with more money than sense, and that was certainly the case for her parents. But as for Miss Carson—Victoria—she was entirely different.
His father had told him all about his bride before they’d arrived. Miss Carson had been born in America but had lived in London since she was a child. The better to prepare her to pursue a titled English husband, he supposed. Up until her debut last year, she’d been with Lady Grantham for finishing. Of course she was one of Grantham’s Girls. How fitting.
But everything he knew about Victoria Carson had not prepared him for what he’d found. Under that fussy pink dress, she was tall and shapely, with honey-gold hair twisted into an elaborate style around a perfect face. Bright green eyes flashed under a thick sweep of curling lashes. Her high cheekbones carried the faintest hint of pink, and her lush lips were a slightly darker shade. And there was her voice. It didn’t quite match her face. Low, with a sort of breathy rasp to it, it turned even the most banal words she uttered into something seductive.
I
n short, he’d been confronted with a girl of almost unbelievable beauty and grace, self-possessed, confident, elegant and sounding as English as the queen. Then there was that moment when their eyes met, the pure, elemental shock of it. Before he’d known what was happening, his body was responding to her, his heart racing and his blood heating.
In his surprise, he’d forgotten what had brought them together. In those endless first minutes in her presence, he’d simply wanted her, in the way a man wants a very desirable woman. It was all he could do to speak some pleasantry over her hand when he’d been thinking of nothing but sliding his palm up her arm and touching all the silky skin she displayed. He didn’t hear a word of the false greetings uttered by his father and her parents, insensible to anything but the faint scent of her orange blossom perfume and the soft rustle and swish of her skirts as she brushed past him to call for tea.
Then she’d asked if he’d been enjoying London this Season and the truth had come crashing back down on him.
None of this was genuine. This was an arrangement he was being forced into to save his sisters. And Miss Carson, no matter how attractive he found her, was marrying him for one reason only: to claim his cursed title for her own. Whatever desperate straits had driven him to this moment, she was here because she wanted something, and that something had nothing to do with him as a man. For her, this was business, and it needed to remain that for him, as well.
How much easier this would be if he’d found her distasteful or unattractive. He’d come here today prepared to muddle through whatever travesty of a proposal he was expected to utter to close the deal, and leave without looking back. Victoria Carson, and his own unsettling reaction to her, were complications he didn’t need or want.
Maybe there was some other way. He had to marry a fortune, but did it have to be her fortune? Did he have to marry a woman so fraught with potential difficulties? It would surely be better to find some bland, unappealing woman with money, one he could marry and forget in a moment.
Then her father, the fat, ruddy industrialist, laughed too loudly at something his father said and he remembered the rest. Ah, yes. His hand in marriage had been won in a card game. A deal had already been struck. The two of them were simply the chips used for bargaining.
Mrs. Carson said something in her shrill voice and Victoria glanced at her. For a moment, something flashed there, but it was gone too fast to put a name to, and her perfect façade dropped back into place. It seemed Miss Carson might be hiding secrets behind that pretty face.
As he examined her, she glanced back at him and their eyes locked again. She caught her lower lip briefly with her teeth. He wanted to bite her lush bottom lip himself. He wanted to plunder her perfect mouth and see if she tasted as good as she smelled. This was a disaster. For a moment, he was nearly furious with Miss Carson for being so desirable. He hated every single one of them for landing him in this impossible position. He’d cast off his family after University precisely to avoid this, the drawing rooms and prestigious, loveless marriages and stifling, hypocritical English respectability. He didn’t want a rich wife and this bloody title. He wanted to get up and run—back to Italy, back to his work, and let the duke hang himself.
But his sisters...
There was nothing for it. He had to wed this stranger, but he’d keep it the business arrangement it was meant to be. He’d be polite, he’d be respectful, but no more.
“Waring, I thought I might borrow you for a word in the study. To settle our details.”
Oh, hell, this was it. They were going to settle the terms of the marriage. He passed his handkerchief across his forehead, wiping away the beading sweat, and swallowed hard.
His father leaned across to him, reeking of Scotch, and he smirked as he whispered, “See? Not so bad after all. I wouldn’t mind a go between those lily white thighs myself.”
Nausea roiled through him and he dug his fingers into the settee. The idea of doing anything to aid this man made him sick. But it wasn’t for him, or his awful mother. It was for Louisa and Emma. It was their faces he focused on as his father stood up and followed Carson out of the room.
At the same moment, Mrs. Carson rose with a great deal of ceremony. “Perhaps I might withdraw for a moment, as well? The housekeeper needs a word.”
They were leaving him alone to get the job done. Despite the bloodless, businesslike nature of this arrangement, he was still expected to ask her. How the hell did a man ask a total stranger to marry him?
* * *
The door closed behind Victoria’s mother with a soft click that seemed to echo like a gunshot. The earl sat frozen beside her. He didn’t utter a word. He scarcely seemed to breathe. She let the moment linger, in case he was gathering his thoughts. But when the silence began to grow awkward, her instincts kicked in.
“More tea?” She reached for the pot.
Lord Dunnley set his untouched tea on the side table. “No, thank you.”
“Perhaps a biscuit? Our cook makes divine shortbread. Her mother was Scottish and the recipe—”
“Miss Carson.” His voice cut her off short. She looked back at him. His eyes were skating over her hands, her skirts, the settee, anywhere but her face. He swallowed and she watched his Adam’s apple bob over the edge of his starched white shirt collar. His skin was quite a deep golden hue against his shirt, rather unfashionably tanned, perhaps from his time in Italy. Imagining him under the hot Mediterranean sun, the wind in his unruly black hair as he smiled, sent her thoughts skittering away in distracting directions. What did he look like smiling? He hadn’t lost that hunted expression since he’d walked in the door.
“Yes?” She gave him a gentle prompt when he seemed disinclined to continue.
He shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat. He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again. This was becoming unbearable.
“We both know why I’m here.”
Victoria dropped her eyes to her hands and suppressed the urge to twist her fingers into her skirt. No outward show of nerves allowed. Keep the expression pleasant and neutral, no fidgeting.
“I have some idea, My Lord.”
“Of course you do,” he said wearily.
She looked up at him, and he turned away with an exasperated sigh. The least he could do was make some small effort toward pleasing her, considering his situation. He wasn’t the only man to offer for her. And he hadn’t even done it yet. Despite his beautiful face and the startling effect he seemed to have on her, she was beginning to wish Lord Dunnley had arrived looking altogether less appealing and showing slightly more enthusiasm at the prospect of marrying her. But there was no going back now. They were nearly to the thick of things.
“It seems it’s been decided we are to wed,” he said at last.
“So I have been told.”
“You are amenable, then?”
Despite years of hard-hearted preparation for this moment, something in her still recoiled at this cold negotiation. She might be entering into a devil’s bargain with this man. But at present, it was the best option open to her. Her position as his wife would set her free in a way she could scarcely imagine. The rest—him—she’d manage as best she could.
She inclined her head, focusing not on his obvious discomfort, but on the independence she’d know, and hopefully—one day—on having children of her own to love. Yes, she was definitely amenable to that.
“I am.”
Silence descended on them. Dunnley said nothing more, and she stared at him, willing the words to come out of his mouth.
“And you, My Lord?” She was going to have to drag this out of him. It was humiliating.
The earl blinked and swallowed again. “I...” he began and then trailed off. Just when she was resolving that he wouldn’t bring himself to do it in the end, he spit the words out. “Very well. We’ll be married. It’s ag
reed.”
Victoria wasn’t sure if she was relieved or dismayed. Perhaps both. She’d done it. She’d far exceeded anyone’s expectations for her match. But now she’d have to marry him. This man would be her partner for life and she’d met him not more than an hour ago. Despite her physical reaction to him, she knew almost nothing about him outside of his bloodlines. Did he possess a sense of humor under all that starch? Was he kind once you got past the glower? She had no idea. What if she’d traded one prison for another?
Their chance of making a life together lay as much in her hands as his, so it was time to make some sort of overture toward him. Reaching out a hand, she brushed her fingertips against his sleeve. He startled out of his reserved stillness and his head whipped around, his eyes finally meeting hers.
“I shall do everything in my power to make you happy, My Lord.”
He finally smiled. It was faint and too polite, but it was lovely and at least it was a start. “It’s...We’re in an awkward situation, Miss Carson, but perhaps there’s a way forward, once we get to know each other a bit.” Tentatively, he settled his hand over hers. The warmth and weight of it was unfamiliar, but not unpleasant.
She let out a breath and smiled. “I’m sure that’s true. I’m willing to try.”
“I’m sure you are.”
She wanted to turn her hand in his, so her palm would rest against his. Perhaps they could settle in and actually drink their tea, have a chat and get on with getting to know one another. She didn’t even know his name, only his title. But before she could speak, he patted the back of her hand and stood up with another awkward smile.
“If you’ll excuse me. I should relate the news to our fathers.”
“Of course.”
“Perhaps I might call on you tomorrow morning for a walk in the park?”
A morning call and a walk in the park was about as generic an overture a man could make, but it was a start. “I’d like that.”
A Duchess in Name Page 4