Sutton's Surrender (The Sinful Suttons 3)

I should be polite.

This man could cause all manner of problems for my family.

There was the voice of reason rising within the shadowy corners of her mind, the one she often ignored. And yet, his insistence upon remaining, coupled with his lovely face, and those ice-blue eyes, why, he managed to affect her in a way no man had since…

Nay!

She struck the thought from her mind and forced herself back to the problem awaiting her. The handsome, lordly, haughty problem.

“I have already told you that I’ve no intention of accepting your bribe,” she said, and then cursed herself for her stubborn sense of pride.

For she was misleading him. Quite likely, he believed she was determined to hold on to her supposed betrothal to Aidan, when in truth she was desperate for the opposite. There was no betrothal as far as she was concerned. Oh, what a hopeless muddle.

“Just who do you think you are, my dear?” Slowly, with elegant and graceful deliberation, Lord Lindsey moved toward her. Prowling in the way only a duke’s heir truly could. “Could you possibly be foolish enough to suppose you have the ability to refuse me?”

Had she thought him handsome? Surely it had been a trick of the light.

Clinging to her outrage, she met him halfway across the small, woefully decorated parlor. It was a dusty chamber, frequently unused as she and her siblings inevitably preferred to dwell in other areas of the establishment that felt less…proper and stifling. She hoped Lord Lordly had spent his time within these walls sneezing.

She stopped just short of his booted toes, holding his gaze as defiance thundered through her. “I’ll not accept your blood money, my lord. Save it for someone else who will be easily bought. I’m a Sutton, and we are loyal.”

The corner of the viscount’s mouth lifted in a half smirk. “Loyal to your greed and your determination to rise above your station, you mean.”

“Loyal to those who deserve our loyalty,” she corrected coldly, wondering what it must be like to possess such a disillusioned view of those around him. “Loyal to those who have earned it.”

Had Aidan earned hers? She was beginning to wonder. This troublesome business with his brother was far more than she had bargained for, and his sudden absence was as alarming as his apparent betrothal announcement to his family was. How dare he use her in such fashion? For surely, there was no other means by which she might describe his recent actions.

But that was another problem for another day. For now, today’s vexation was towering over her, exuding a cold conceit that chilled her to the marrow and yet heated some strange part of her all at once.

He bit out a laugh that was steeped in mockery, lips twisting in a smile to match. “Allow me to see if I understand you, Miss Sutton. You are suggesting that you are refusing my more-than-generous offer to forego marrying my idiotic brother out of some sense of loyalty, rather than greed. Is that it?”

“Yes,” she said with a nod, “it is.”

Only, when he said it thus, he made her motives sound suspect. What a bitter, distrusting man he was. What could have happened to make him thus? Aidan, for all his faults, was always ready with an easy laugh and a genuine smile. He did not ridicule or cling to his position in society.

“Ha,” said the viscount, nary a hint of levity in him.

Why wait to box Aidan’s ears? Perhaps she might begin with his brother.

Pen sighed. “Am I meant to suppose you do not believe me? I fear that false ducal laughter is not easily translated.”

“Hmm.”

His gaze was searching, his tone and his expression both rife with disapproval.

“That’s all you ’ave to say, Lord Lordly?” she asked, omitting her h just to spite him.

Jasper had known there would be value in them all speaking well. From the time money had permitted, he had seen them all educated. For some of her older siblings, slipping into flash was more familiar than it was for Pen, though she was still plagued by the occasional lapse. Lord Lordly needn’t know that, however. Let him stew, thinking about how horrific it would be for his younger brother to marry a lowborn lady who could not even mimic her betters.

“I am not a duke.”

Of all the things he might have said, somehow, this response surprised Pen most. “Yet.”

He inclined his head. “I hope to remain Lord Lindsey for many, many years.”

He would only become the duke when his father died, his sober expression and his words reminded her. But he was ducal enough on his own. What a strange life it must be for the quality. Oddly, she had never considered it before, over the course of her friendship with Aidan. He had always merely been someone who agreed to all her larks and humored her every wish. All this, he had done with a charming—and sometimes drunken—grin.

She nodded. “Of course. I did not mean to suggest you are awaiting the death of your father. To do so would be dreadfully insulting. Rather in the vein of someone suggesting a lady wished to marry her friend solely for his fortune and familial connections.”

Her words were as pointed as any blade, and if she were to judge from the viscount’s countenance, she would wager they had hit their mark.

His jaw tensed. “I find myself growing weary of this aimless prattle, Miss Sutton. Let me be clear. You will accept the five hundred pounds I am willing to generously offer you. It is a king’s ransom and far more than marriage to Aidan is worth. In return, you will end your betrothal with my brother and forego all further communication with him. Indeed, you will cut him from your life altogether from this moment forward.”

His absolute belief that she would accept his edict rankled.

“Did you ever stop to suppose that your brother and I are in love?” she asked, frustrated with his condescension. “Or had it never occurred to you that Aidan might be hopelessly besotted with me and that your bribery, should I accept it, would break his heart?”

His lordship flashed her a thin, condescending smile. “He would have no trouble nursing his wounded heart at the nearest brothel. Which begs the question, Miss Sutton, of whether or not you have considered the man with whom you have pledged your troth. Aidan is nothing if not inconstant. If he has told you he loves you, it is only because he has yet to find a lovelier, brighter, more generous-breasted version of yourself upon whom he might ply his flattery.”

She ought to slap the viscount for his insult. But the truth was, he was not entirely wrong in his estimation of Aidan. She knew he was fickle and faithless in romance, which was why they made excellent friends and one of many reasons why she would never marry him.

And there was something so very dismaying and disheartening in Lord Lindsey’s words. He was not an unintelligent man; quite the opposite. His was a rare, cutting understanding of the world around him. Bitter and jaded, yet somehow grounded in more than a modicum of truth, despite his cynicism.

“You do not like your own brother,” she said, an astonishing realization to make not just because she cared for Aidan as if he were another brother, but because she also loved each of her siblings. She would do anything for them, just as she knew each of them would lay down their lives to protect hers.

But then, as she had already told Lord Lordly, Suttons were loyal, a trait it would seem the Weir family did not possess.