Page 41 of What's a Duke Got to Do With It
“It is, and you know it.” He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. “I don’t suppose this has anything to do with the latest scandal to visit you. I vow, Miss Denby, you are certainly a magnet for those types of things, aren’t you?”
Katrina, of course, didn’t have the foggiest idea how to respond to that except to blush violently. Mr. Kendrick heaved a great sigh before, nodding, he reached out and took Katrina by the chin.
Muscles seizing in shock, Katrina could only stare at the man as he brought his face closer to hers. Good God, was he going tokissher? Her stomach roiled at the very idea, and for a moment she feared she would cast up her accounts then and there all over the man.
Blessedly, however, he had no intention of doing something so outrageous—and unwelcome. Instead he studied Katrina’s face, turning it this way and that.
“Your skin is not spotty, I’ll give you that,” he muttered. “And you’ve got good features, if a bit too fine. Do your eyes trouble you?”
“N-no,” Katrina managed.
The man nodded. “Good. I won’t have any heir of mine inheriting bad eyes. After all, look at me. Four and sixty, and never needed spectacles a day in my life. Though I will insist on waiting until you’ve had your courses before bedding you. I don’t give a damn if you were with that other fellow, the one who broke his neck trying to get to you, but I won’t have any cuckoos in the nest, if you know what I mean. Now,” he continued, leaning in closer, “open your mouth for me, gel, so I might see your teeth.”
Before Katrina could even think to do as he asked, however, a strong hand on Mr. Kendrick’s wrist had him releasing her. Dazed, Katrina looked up to see Sebastian glaring down at the older man.
“I would appreciate,” he said, his voice even and measured and yet containing a dangerous tension that had the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end, “that you not maul the young lady and study her like a horse for sale.”
“I say,” Mr. Kendrick sputtered as he glared up at Sebastian, “I don’t know who you think you are, but you cannot handle me in such a way, sir.”
“Oh, but forgive me for not introducing myself,” Sebastian drawled, bowing his head. “I am Sebastian Thorne, Duke of Ramsleigh.”
The blood drained from the older man’s face, giving his pasty skin a gray cast. “Ah, er, pleased to make your acquaintance, Your Grace.”
“I cannot say I feel the same,” Sebastian answered coldly before, turning to Katrina, he gently placed a hand under her arm. “Miss Denby, your tea grows cold.”
But Katrina, who was now coming to the realization that Sebastian’s interference had once more knocked another prospective husband off her pathetically small list, snapped. Yanking away from his touch, she stood and, not caring that she was making an absolute spectacle of herself, stormed for the door. The bell above her head swung wildly as she threw the panel wide, the clang of it jarring her eardrums, but she hardly heard it for the blood rushing in her ears. Even as she raced across The Promenade to the path beyond, however, even as she dragged huge gulps of ocean air into her lungs to calm herself, there was no taking away the maelstrom of emotions that sat like an agitated ball in the pit of her stomach. Though whether it was due to losing another prospect, or relief that she had lost him, she could not tell.
She had never felt more humiliated, more like an object, than she had in the moment Mr. Kendrick had taken her chin in his hands. Sebastian had been right, of course, in that the man had been studying her like a horse for sale.
Yet what had she expected? She, with a reputation shredded not once, but twice? She, with no prospects other than the worst of the worst Synne had to offer? And all while pining for the one man she could never, ever have.
“Katrina.”
She groaned, wiping at her wet cheeks before turning to face him. Of course he had followed her out here.
“What do you want, Sebastian?”
The agony on his face nearly had the tears returning.
“You cannot tell me you mean to take that man as a husband,” he rasped.
Exhaustion pulled down on her, and she would have given just about anything to return to Seacliff and her bed and put this whole mess behind her. Unable to look him in the eyes a moment longer—eyes that contained much more pain than she was worth—she looked out to the water line. The churning waves rushed in with a rumble, frothy surf tumbling across the sand before retreating in a hush, like a spurned lover, only to return. A never-ending cycle.
“My choices are limited, as you well know,” she managed, wrapping her arms about her middle. “Mr. Kendrick would have provided me with the respectability I need.” A respectability that was now even more out of reach than before. Hopelessness fell over her again, but this time it was threaded through with anger: anger at him for interfering; anger at herself for her relief that he had; anger at the world for vilifying women while men were not held to the same standards.
She turned her face to his, her voice hard. “Though Mr. Kendrick will certainly not consider me now, not after your treatment of him.”
His expression only became bleaker. “I am more sorry than I can say. I should not have interfered.”
Her chest ached at the self-recrimination in his voice. But she would not soften. “No, you should not have. You have made my position even more untenable. Mr. Kendrick was one of the few men who would consider marrying a woman with such a history.”
Which finally dragged a response from him that was not self-condemnation. No, this one was decidedly angry. “Those who would pass up a chance to have you by their side are fools.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. His eyes seemed to burn as he gazed down at her, his voice harsh and working its way through her, wrapping about her heart. Would that he was free…
She shook her head sharply, dispelling the aching thought. There was no sense going down that path; it would only bring pain and regret.
He seemed to sense that what he had said was inappropriate. Clearing his throat, he blinked several times in rapid succession, as if expelling something uncomfortable from his eye. “What I meant to say was, there must be more men than you have considered that would be happy to take you for a wife.”
