Page 81 of A Rogue to Resist
Chapter Twenty-One
“I’ll marry him, of course,” his fiancée said. “I know my duty.”
Drake Halston, Earl of Greythorne, paused in the act of adjusting his already immaculate cravat.
He stood just beyond the velvet curtain that partially concealed a small alcove off the main ballroom, where Lady Eleanor’s voice carried with unexpected clarity despite the surrounding noise of the Countess of Westwick’s ball.
He had been searching for his betrothed, having fulfilled his obligatory dances with the appropriate matrons and young ladies of suitable rank. Society demanded he now devote his attention to Lady Eleanor, a responsibility he had approached with dutiful resignation rather than enthusiasm.
But now, hearing her speaking to someone unseen, Drake found himself frozen in place, arrested by her tone as much as her words.
“But you must feel something for him,” another young woman’s voice protested—Miss Catherine Pembrooke, if Drake wasn’t mistaken. “He’s quite handsome, and an earl besides.”
Lady Eleanor’s light laugh held no genuine amusement. “Handsome enough, I suppose, though rather severe in his manner. But his looks are hardly the point. Father made itperfectly clear that the connection was too advantageous to decline. The Greythorne estates are extensive, even if they require considerable investment to restore them properly.”
Drake’s hand fell from his cravat, a cold sensation spreading through his chest.
That his fiancée might not harbour tender feelings for him was hardly surprising—their courtship had been brief and formal, the engagement arranged with an efficiency that precluded genuine attachment. But hearing her discuss their union with such emotional detachment was unexpectedly painful.
“So, your father arranged it all?” Miss Pembrooke asked, her voice dropping to a scandalized whisper. “But I thought—that is, it was announced so suddenly...”
“Father had been considering the match for some time,” Lady Eleanor explained. “When he heard Lord Greythorne had returned from visiting that widow he’s been spending time with, Father saw his opportunity. He wrote to his lordship immediately with the proposal—quite a bold move, but Father has always been direct about such matters.”
Drake stiffened.
The widow she referred to could only be Katherine. And yes, when Lord Fairfield’s letter had arrived at Greythorne proposing the advantageous match, Drake had been in precisely the emotional state to make such a rash decision—wounded, desperate, and convinced Katherine had chosen another.
He had agreed to the arrangement without much thought, desperate for any distraction from the hollow ache in his chest.
Lord Fairfield’s suggestion that Lady Eleanor might prove a suitable match had seemed like the solution to all his problems. Young, well-connected, properly raised, andapparently agreeable to the match—what more could he ask for in his circumstances?
“But aren’t you concerned about...” Miss Pembrooke hesitated, then continued in a hushed tone, “well, the rumours about him and Lady Katherine? They say he was quite taken with her, despite her being his predecessor’s widow.”
Lady Eleanor’s sigh was audible even from Drake’s position. “Oh, that business. Father says it was nothing more than estate matters. She apparently managed Greythorne during her marriage, as the late earl was frequently in London. The new Lord Greythorne naturally required her assistance during the transition.”
“But they were seen together often,” Miss Pembrooke persisted. “And Lady Swansea claims they argued most passionately in the village market, like—”
She broke off, apparently reconsidering her words.
“Like lovers?” Lady Eleanor supplied, her tone somewhere between amusement and disdain. “I doubt it. Lady Katherine is rather old, don’t you think? And Father says she declared repeatedly that she had no intention of remarrying. Besides, the announcement of our engagement clearly settled the matter.”
Drake’s jaw tightened at this dismissal of Katherine—of her vitality, her intelligence, her passionate dedication to Greythorne and its people. To hear her reduced to “rather old” by this debutante, and therefore presumably undesirable, stirred a protective anger he had no right to feel.
“Still,” Miss Pembrooke murmured, “it seems rather sudden. You barely know each other.”
“That’s how these arrangements work,” Lady Eleanor replied matter-of-factly. “One needn’t know a gentleman well to understand that he requires a countess and an heir. I need make no particular effort beyond maintaining a pleasant householdand eventually producing children. It’s a fair exchange—his title and fortune for my family connections and my...biological capabilities.”
The clinical assessment of their future marriage made Drake’s stomach turn. He had proposed to Lady Eleanor believing their arrangement would be precisely that—practical, unemotional, fulfilling the entail’s requirements without the complications of genuine attachment.
Yet hearing her describe it in such stark terms suddenly rendered the entire proposition distasteful.
“You make it sound so cold,” Miss Pembrooke observed, echoing Drake’s thoughts with uncanny accuracy.
“It’s practical,” Lady Eleanor corrected. “My mother prepared me well for this. One’s duty to family must supersede personal inclinations. Lord Greythorne requires a wife of suitable breeding to provide an heir and manage his household. I require the security and status his title provides. Sentiment is irrelevant.”
She was describing exactly what he and her father had arranged—a practical alliance that served both their needs. Drake had known this when he accepted the match, had even appreciated its clarity. But hearing it stated so bluntly now made him realize how completely he had betrayed his mother’s wisdom.
Drake stepped back from the curtain, unable to bear another word. The echo of his own pragmatic justifications for the match rang hollowly in his mind, stripped of all dignity by Lady Eleanor’s cool assessment.
