The Rake's Wicked Proposal

Grace’s heart ached as her gaze followed her aunt’s departure from the dining room. The Duchess had somehow become shrunken this past week, a shadow of her former self. Her step was no longer light and youthful, and her face looked every one of her forty-eight years.

Grace’s eyes sparkled with anger as she turned back to Darius. ‘Do you mean to be cruel, Your Grace?’

Darius looked taken aback by the attack—a feeling he quickly masked, his handsome face appearing as if carved from stone, and that cobalt-blue gaze meeting hers coldly. ‘You are overstepping the line, Grace.’

‘Am I?’ Twin spots of colour had appeared in Grace’s cheeks. ‘My aunt has been widowed but a week, and yet you—’

‘I believe I will forgo the brandy and instead retire with Grace to the drawing room.’ Lucian stood up as he spoke, his hand moving beneath Grace’s elbow as he drew her to his side, not in the least gently.

Darius looked up at his boyhood friend frowningly, and a silent exchange passed between the two men before he turned back to Grace, his expression unrelentingly hard. ‘I have almost forgotten this last week that the two of you are betrothed.’ He gave a terse inclination of his head. ‘You have my permission to retire to the drawing room with Lord Lucian, Grace.’

‘Come along, Grace.’ Lucian didn’t allow time for her to voice the comment he could see hovering on her lips as he strode forcefully from the room dragging Grace with him. He turned to her impatiently once they were outside in the hallway. ‘You are in danger of more than overstepping the line, Grace!’

She looked unrepentant. ‘You—’

‘This is not about me, Grace.’ A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw as he glared down at her. ‘Nor is it about you. Do you really believe that your aunt would approve of your causing a scene on her behalf at the dinner table?’

Grace continued to look rebellious for several more seconds before her gaze dropped. ‘That was unfair, Lucian.’

‘If you dare to attack Darius in that way a second time you might find that he can be more than unfair!’ Lucian could not allow Grace to take the step she seemed so hell-bent on taking. ‘Whether you like it or not, Grace, this is now his home, and you are only in it by his leave! Carry on the way you are going and he may decide to toss you out into the gutter.’

‘I have my own home in Cornwall—’

Lucian shook his head. ‘You have property and money that has been put in trust. Until such time as you marry. But until that time they both remain in Darius’s control!’ Now it was Lucian who was being deliberately cruel. For Grace’s own sake. She simply could not go around repeating accusations that were merely gossip and hearsay.

Grace’s face paled as she realised the truth of his words. She was here by Darius’s leave. They all were. ‘I shall be moving into the Dower House with my aunt in several days—’

‘Only if Darius allows it. You are his ward, Grace. His to bid either go or stay,’ Lucian added hardly. Grace gave him a startled look. ‘Perhaps the prospect of marrying me does not now seem like such a distasteful one after all?’ He eyed her mockingly.

The prospect of marrying Lucian was not distasteful to Grace at all. The prospect of marrying a Lucian who did not love her as she loved him was, however…

She met his gaze unblinkingly. ‘Exchange one despot for another? Is that what you mean?’

Lucian’s mouth tightened. ‘Grace, you are seriously in danger of receiving that beating we discussed earlier!’

Her expression was scornful. ‘I should like to see you try!’

Lucian was tempted. Very tempted. But the memory of his earlier imaginings told him he would not be able to stop himself from making love to Grace once he had administered that smack to her bottom. Always supposing she had not already totally unmanned him for inflicting such indignity upon her person!

‘No, Grace, you would not,’ he bit out coldly. ‘I suggest, before you go any further with this, that you consider your aunt’s feelings in the matter.’

‘It is of my aunt that I am thinking.’