The Wyndham Legacy (Legacy 1)

He continued to eat and drink. He paid her no more mind.

She seated herself opposite him and poured herself a cup of coffee from the lovely Meissen pot.

He said then, in a voice she recognized as the eye of the storm, “I will kill you, Duchess. After breakfast.”

“But you don’t yet know why or if you would still want to.”

“I’ll want to. It doesn’t matter, it—”

“I’m your wife.”

She watched his hand holding a butter knife become perfectly still. He had a brioche halfway to his mouth. It remained halfway. He shook his head, then winced from the pain it brought him in his ribs. He looked over at her, then shook his head again.

He said very politely, “I beg your pardon?”

“I’m your wife. We’re married.”

Still he couldn’t take it in, he couldn’t make the words take on sense. She thrust out her hand toward him. He stared at it, bewildered, then watched her waggle her third finger.

He saw the plain gold band.

He said, still staring at that finger with its ring, “You said that you’re my wife?”

“Yes, Marcus. I can explain everything if you will allow me to.”

“Oh yes, I will allow that. Then I will kill you.”

“We drugged you. I insisted because I knew you would never agree. You’re much too proud, too stubborn. You would have never listened to reason.”

“Spears assisted you.”

“Yes, as did Badger. I hope you won’t blame either of them. They believed strongly in what we did. They didn’t want to see you lose your inheritance because of—”

“Yes, Duchess? Because of?”

“Because you’re such a stubborn sod. And because you somehow imagine that this punishes my father, who is dead and doesn’t know a thing. And because you dislike me so very much.”

“I see. So first, Spears tried to drug me, but he didn’t know that I wanted sex with Lisette more than his lukewarm tea, and didn’t drink it. Thus I heard the intruders break into my lodgings. I should probably have shot all of you.”

“We had only until June sixteenth, Marcus. Otherwise the American Wyndhams would have inherited everything. I couldn’t allow that to happen. Surely you must see that.”

“May I ask how long you’ve been planning this?”

“Since the morning you ran away.”

“I didn’t run away. I left an intolerable situation.” He stopped, leaning back in his chair. He looked at his fingertips tapping rhythmically on the tabletop. “I didn’t want to ever see Chase Park again, you know.”

“You don’t have to, but you own it. You now have no more worries. There will be no more allowances, no asking Mr. Wicks for permission to do this or to do that. Everything is in your control now, Marcus. Everything.”

“And the only price to pay is having you for my wife.”

He’d said it calmly, quietly, but she felt herself stiffen nonetheless. There would be more, she could practically hear the words forming on his tongue. She didn’t have long to wait after she said, “I hope, I pray, that having me as your wife isn’t too heinous a prospect.”

It was as if she were purposefully asking for insult, she thought, and wondered what he would say. He said, “It is a prospect that I am still unable to credit. Yesterday, I was a single man with his very charming mistress, content with his two-hundred-pound quarterly allowance. This morning, I awaken to find myself back in the earl’s boots. I had thrown those boots away, Duchess. I didn’t want them back.”

“Then why did you fight the man who called you the Dispossessed Earl?”

He roared to his feet, nearly toppling the table. One coffee cup fell to its side. She watched the coffee drip onto the table and run in a thin quick line to the edge and then to the floor.