The Duchess War (Brothers Sinister #1)

Minnie swallowed. “Robert isn’t like that.”


The duchess’s hands compressed around her solitary glove. “I have read Pride and Prejudice. I know precisely what role you’re casting me in—the officious Lady Catherine, foolish meddler, who believes that Darcy must marry her miserable daughter.” Her lips pinched. “Maybe that is my place. I should sit here and shriek at you, ‘Are the shades of Clermont House to be thus polluted?’”

Minnie blinked in surprise, and the woman smiled.

“I did tell you I was once a romantic,” she said. “So maybe I am to be Lady Catherine. But I see so much of my foolish, younger self in him—that gallantry, that certainty of love, that hope for the future. I would not wish my life on anyone.”

This conversation had not gone as Minnie had first imagined. Instead of enraging her, the duchess’s words brought a sort of cold clarity to the situation.

“You must love your son very much,” she said.

“No,” the other woman said softly. “I suppose I could have, once. But there’s only so often a boy can be used as a knife to your heart before you stop feeling anything at all. I hadn’t any choice about it, and…” She shrugged. “I haven’t the emotion to browbeat you much further, or to beg. I will just ask, as nicely as I can.” She looked into Minnie’s eyes. “Please don’t do this to my son.”

The duchess, Minnie concluded, was an odd woman. Extremely odd. She felt a twinge of compassion for her.

“He’s a gentler boy than his father was.” Her lips pinched. “When he sees how they treat you, he’ll be miserable. He never could stand for mistreatment.”

“All very well,” Minnie said. “If I were a better person, I suppose I would agree and refuse his suit for his own good. But you said it yourself. I have no fortune, no family, no future.” She smiled awkwardly. “You’ve already heard rumors connecting me with your son. How do you suppose my reputation will fare in his absence?”

The duchess’s eyes narrowed. “Has he…”

“I’m not ruined,” Minnie continued. “And the gossip thus far is only outraged. But even a hint of a dark spot is all I need. Nicety of principle is a luxury for the wealthy. I can’t afford it.” She shook her head. “I know how utterly disastrous it would be to marry him. More than you could imagine.”

The thought of being the duchess—of fielding those whispers, feeling the weight of everyone’s stare everywhere she went—made Minnie feel dizzy. But she had the opportunity to provide for herself, for her great-aunts, for good. She shook her head. “I know it would be a disaster. But I have no choice. I must do it.”

She looked up to find that the duchess was actually smiling at her. “How refreshing,” the other woman said. “Here I thought you would wail and beat your breast amidst protestations of love. But you’re singularly unromantic.”

Minnie gave a sharp jerk of her head in denial. “I can imagine castles and dukes as much as any woman.” But she would never have imagined Robert. He was better than any prince. She could see the gleam in his eye as he told her he wanted the peerage abolished. If it were just the two of them, she might have fallen in love with him. It was a miracle, given her past, that she’d met someone she could come to love—and who seemed to return her regard in some form. Rejecting that felt dangerous. Some gifts might not come around a second time.

And yet proclaiming herself a duke’s wife? That was the kind of pride that went before not a mere fall, but a tumble off a steep cliff.

She could see every jagged stone waiting at the bottom.

She was well and truly caught between hope and hubris.

“I could be romantic,” she said softly. “But romance is also a luxury I can’t afford.”

“How ironic.” The other woman stared at her. “I actually think you’d be good for him, if only you were someone else entirely.”

Minnie laughed and shut her eyes.

The duchess leaned forward. “So let us see how your principles fare when you have a choice. I’ll give you five thousand pounds.”

Minnie’s eyes jerked open. She looked at the woman—she was sure she had to be joking. But the duchess watched her with all seriousness.

“You will,” Minnie said, dazedly. Five thousand pounds—it seemed an impossible amount. Enough to live on. Enough to assure her great-aunts’ future. Enough to form a reasonable dowry, if that’s what she wanted, or for her to move to the continent. It was too much money.

But then she considered the gown the duchess was wearing—all that fabric, yards and yards of lace, the careful stitchery. That gown itself probably cost more than a hundred pounds.