Least Likely to Marry a Duke (Liberated Ladies)

Verity turned abruptly, walked to the steps down to the lawn and the long flower border that glowed with colour against the stone of the terrace. She felt the impulse to run again, but that would be cowardly and, besides, she could not outrun either Will or this situation.

Strong or stubborn? Determined or selfish?

She reached out and picked a half-open rose from the border.

I will, I won’t, I will...

Petals showered down as she plucked at them.

I won’t—An earwig crawled out of the centre of what was left of the bloom. Verity threw it from her with a violent twist of her wrist. Will was behind her, a few careful feet, leaving her space, leaving her room to think, waiting for her to realise that, twist or turn as she might, she was not going to escape.

It was strangely difficult to find enough air in her lungs to speak. She turned and faced him, brushed the petals from her skirts to give herself time. When the words came, they were surprisingly steady. ‘I will not marry you, Your Grace. Not tomorrow. Not this week or next. Never.’

Chapter Thirteen

‘That is a very unwise decision,’ Will said. No, the Duke said. The man standing in front of her was not the one she had teased in the cottage in the thunderstorm, not the one whose eyes crinkled suddenly with unexpected amusement, not the one who kissed her in a woodland glade.

Unwise? Is that all you can say? Can you find no emotion? But this was who he was, the man she was refusing.

‘If I marry you I will gain a great title, wealth, the preservation of my good name. And in the process I will lose myself,’ she said steadily, somehow matching his calm tone.

Will closed the space between them, took her hand. ‘Miss Wingate, I beg you to think again, before it is too late.’

Extraordinary, the way in which he makes it sound as though he actually wants to marry me. A duke’s manners are perfect under all circumstances, I suppose.

How had he planned to force her into the mould of an ideal duchess? Verity shivered. This was a man who was taken from his father and sc

hooled into near perfection by an old man whose only ambition, it seemed, was to recreate himself in his grandson when his own son failed to meet his expectations.

‘You should be glad,’ she said bluntly. He knew that only too well, he must do, but she wanted to shake him out of his formality, needed some sign of real feeling. Some emotion. Some thwarted passion? That was just her own pride showing, she told herself. Will had kissed her three times. Now that he was making a final attempt to persuade her to be his wife he showed no sign of wanting to do so again.

‘I am sure you would make an admirable duchess, in your own style, once you had time to adjust.’ There was the faintest hint of a crease between his brows now. ‘There is no need to worry that you would somehow fail in any way, Verity. I will help you.’

‘I am not worried. I am telling you that I will not be pressed into a mould and baked into rigidity like a gingerbread figure for you, your title or for respectability.’

‘You would make a very crisp and spicy biscuit,’ he remarked, with the first trace of humour Verity had seen since she had walked, uninvited, into the study where all those men had been dictating her future. He tipped his head to one side, studying her face as though he could read her true feelings if only he looked hard enough. ‘Are you very upset by this?’

Upset is such a nice, moderate word. It is so easy to settle an upset, to soothe the ruffled feathers, mop up the spilt milk.

‘I do not know how I feel about you,’ Verity confessed. She could like the man behind the Duke, perhaps. But the armour that he had grown around himself was more impenetrable than a crab’s shell. ‘I know I do not want to marry you, that it would be a disaster for both of us. But I do not want to see you hurt by this.’

‘Hurt.’ He said the word as though he was trying it for taste, a bite of a strange and exotic fruit. ‘I see. Then let us part as friends. I kissed you before, when I should not have done. And again just now when I suspect you were wary of my motives. But I would like to kiss you again now.’ He was very close now. ‘Do you wish me to?’

‘Will it make this any better?’ There was the somewhat humiliating awareness that, yes, it would make things better. That she wanted him in that way, if in no other. Could he tell—or would he think her simply immodest and eager for kisses, anyone’s kisses? If she had married him, then, when he took her to bed, he would surely have known that she was not the inexperienced virgin he had believed her to be. Better that this was all that was between them.

‘I would hope so. Kissing is generally considered to be a pleasurable activity.’ His hands were on her shoulders, turning her. ‘Of course, if you do not wish it, you have only to say. We could shake hands on our agreement to disagree. I would not want to presume that you would be anything but shy about such matters.’

Is he laughing at me?

‘You know perfectly well that I have not been shy about it before,’ Verity said crossly, although she allowed Will to turn her fully to face him.

He drew her closer in, so close that she had to tip up her face to look into his, so close that she could feel the press of his thighs through her skirts.

Verity gave a soft murmur, leaning against him just a little, answering the unspoken message of his hands.

Will’s eyes narrowed and she wondered if she had shocked him by responding like this, even now when she had so roundly rejected him. Did dukes and duchesses have passionate marriages? Perhaps one had to make an appointment with his secretary. Or one could write a note.

Her Grace the Duchess of Aylsham proposes a meeting for spontaneous mutual excitement at six of the afternoon in the Orangery...