Page 88 of A Duke Changes Everything
“How can you be so serene? Your reputation—”
“You keep saying that word as if I’m some debutante. No one in Barrowmere will care how I spent my evening.”
He blushed so fiercely, she thought he might catch fire.
“Certainly no one in London cares what I do.”
“What of the duke? Will London not care that the Duke of Tremayne kidnapped an innocent from a Mayfair dinner party?”
“That’s not at all what happened and you know it.” If not for Colin’s already riled state, Mina would have laughed. “What’s gotten into you? Do you secretly read scandal rags when I’m not looking?”
“No, but if I did, I’ve no doubt you and Tremayne would get a mention in this morning’s edition.” He stalked past the fireplace and then dropped onto one of the gold damask settees, lowering his head to his hands. “I should have protected you.”
“I’m not a child, Colin. I’m older than you are, for heaven’s sake. A spinster, most would say.”
“Let’s just go home.” He glanced at her, and she’d never seen him more forlorn. “The next train leaves in less than an hour.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I speak to him.” In the last few hours, she’d slept in Nick’s arms and been closer to him than to anyone she’d ever known. Even if they’d never have more than those hours, she wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.
She’d hated waking alone in the enormous bed, the sheets still warm where Nick had slept. According to Colin, he’d brought Mr. Iverson and Lord Huntley to confront Nick, and she wondered if he’d hated leaving her as much as she disliked waking without him.
“The man is a scoundrel, Mina.” Her cousin stood and faced her, his gaze bleak and beseeching. “Please don’t set your heart on him.”
“It’s too late for that,” she admitted quietly.Far too late.
“I don’t want to see you hurt, as you were before.”
“That was infatuation.”
“And this? What’s different about Tremayne?”
“Everything.” She couldn’t catalog her feelings or sift them. They were too fresh, and Colin wasn’t in any mood to understand.
“Well, then we must hope Mr. Iverson and Lord Huntley can convince him.”
Mina ignored her cousin’s bluster and busied herself collecting the gown she’d borrowed from Mr. Iverson. She laid the red velvet dress on a side table, smoothed out the wrinkles, then bent to collect Nick’s dove-gray waistcoat. A flash of color caught her eye, and she kneeled to examine a long pink ribbon that had fallen from the pocket.
Her ribbon.
A burst of warmth filled her chest. He’d kept her ribbon, tucked it away, right against his chest. That’s where she would have happily remained all day if Colin hadn’t arrived.
She smiled, picked up the strip of satin, and tucked it back into Nick’s waistcoat. As if she’d emerged from a daze, Colin’s words finally registered.
“Convince the duke of what?” A twisting queasiness filled her stomach when Colin looked at her as if she’d gone daft.
“To marry you, of course.”
Mina shook her head and hugged Nick’s waistcoat to her chest. The scent of him gave her a modicum of comfort, but not enough to diminish the horror of Nick’s two friends attempting to force him into marriage.
“He must make his own choice, Colin.” After what he’d endured as a child, the man deserved to make all of his decisions freely.
Not that the prospect of spending every future day with him, in his arms, in his bed, wasn’t what her heart ached for, but how would it work? He was a duke. She wasn’t prepared to be a duchess.
Nick might loathe his ducal responsibilities, but he had to know that marrying a blueblooded lady and providing an heir to the Tremayne dukedom was one of them. Perhaps the most important of all.
She’d known last night that the decision to be with him would be irrevocable, and she wouldn’t take back a single moment, even if she could.
“He must do what’s right by you, Mina.” Colin came forward and placed a hand on her arm.
