The Duchess War (Brothers Sinister #1)

She had thought things couldn’t get any worse than that frozen horror in the courtroom—seeing the man she’d loved, the man who had never had a harsh word for her, point at her and denounce her. Seeing the frightening light in his eyes that said he believed it. He had been all she had in the world—and he’d left her suddenly, publicly alone.

“He was a charismatic, convincing man. They convicted him, not of theft, but of petty fraud—enough to give him two years’ hard labor, but no more. But the people who had been there were convinced that he’d been wronged. When I left the courtroom, completely of myself, I was surrounded by a mob. They shouted. They spat. I don’t know who threw the first rock. I don’t know how many they threw.” She looked over at him. “I fainted by the time they were pulled off me, but I’ve never forgotten it. Ever since then, I can’t bear crowds. I think of them, and I start to shake. I just utterly panic.”

“Have you never had anyone to stand by you?” he asked. His voice was low and hoarse.

“My great-aunts. Lydia, until—” She nearly choked saying those words. But even then, she’d not been able to trust in them. Her great-aunts would pass away. She’d always known that someday, Lydia would find out the truth and take a disgust to her. “Up until the end, I would never have guessed that my father would do that. I like to think that maybe he was ill. That he didn’t know what he was doing when he betrayed me.” Her eyes glistened. “He passed away in prison, so maybe it was true. I have to believe that, because no matter how I try, I can’t stop loving him. He taught me everything I knew. He was my entire life. And I don’t know how to hate him as much as he deserves. So you see, Your Grace, I can’t marry you. I can’t even think of it without shaking. London society would tear me apart.”

“No,” he said quietly. “It won’t.”

She turned to him. “How can you say that?”

“It won’t,” he promised, “because I won’t let that happen.” He turned her chin so that she looked him in the eyes. “Once, you told me I was lucky because I could look wherever I wished without fear. I don’t think I really began to understand what you meant until I found out…” His arms closed around her more tightly. “I knew you were upset. You told me you were frightened. Lucky me, that I could not understand what you meant—how terrified you were.”

She was shaking.

“I give you my word that if you marry me, I will protect you. I will stand by your side and never do harm to you. I’ve already spoken with Stevens and Charingford, and they’ll keep their mouths shut. I promise you on all that I keep sacred that I will do my utmost to keep your past secret, and that if I should fail in that, I will use everything in my power to keep you safe. You will never again need to fear if you marry me.”

“And what will I have to give you in return?”

“Your allegiance.” He held her close. “For as long as we can stand one another’s presence, your body would be nice, too. I don’t expect love. I don’t expect you’ll want me forever. But I think that we could make a good go of it.”

“You don’t expect love.” She shook her head in confusion. “This is the second time you’ve said that. Is this going to be like one of those dreadful novels where you warn me not to fall in love with you, and if I do, then you’ll turn into Bluebeard and try to lop my head off? You’re handsome. You have all your teeth.” She looked into his eyes and lightly touched her hand to his cheek. He grew very still. “I can offer you no promises. If you’re any good in bed, I might fall in love with you. If that is going to be anathema…”

“No,” he said swiftly. He looked away from her, and when he spoke again, there was a slight rasp to his words. “No. That would be perfectly…unobjectionable.”

From his words, she might have thought him uncaring. But that catch in his voice and the way he tilted his head toward her again, gave the lie to his indifference. He looked at her like a thirsty man gazing on an oasis, trying to decide if it were an illusion brought on by the heat.

It made a sudden, impossible sense of everything. He doesn’t want a loveless marriage. He’s just resigned himself to one.

His mother had said that Robert had the heart of a romantic. Minnie had been overwhelmed by other worries at the time, but perhaps the duchess had the right of it. He championed those who had no voice of their own. And for some reason, he had long since convinced himself that he would never be loved.

She was so close to falling in love with him that she almost opened her mouth and told him so. But that light in his eyes—the way he’d looked at her when he said it would be unobjectionable—it would be cruel to say it before it was true.

It will be true soon enough, she thought.

Ever since her father’s betrayal, she’d scolded herself, saying that she’d brought what happened on herself for wanting too much. For daring to think that at twelve—as a girl—she could challenge grown men and walk away unscathed.

But maybe her mistake had been not trying hard enough.