Page 90 of Falling Into Bed with a Duke
“Pardon?”
“Miss Minerva Dodger. What if she had no dowry? You wouldn’t have gone after her, you wouldn’t be disappointed. You’d have never known what you were missing.”
“But I do know, that’s the hell of it.” He wanted to slam his fist into something, but there was nothing within miles except for his horse, which he would not abuse, and Locke, who wasn’t deserving of a fist to the face. “I know how stubborn she can be. How magnanimous. I know she can tear a lady down if she set her mind to it, but she sets her mind to not doing it. She could win a fight in a boxing ring. She smells of verbena. She’s brazen in the bedchamber. And she’s smart. Incredibly smart. She devises investment opportunities. She thinks like a man, which common sense tells me should make her unattractive, but all it does is make me want her all the more.”
“You’ve fallen in love with her.”
“No, no. I just—” He spun around, paced three steps one way, three the other. It was just that he adored her. Every inch. From the top of her head, to the tips of her toes, inside and out. He adored the challenge of her. He adored the times when he was with her. He liked talking to her, listening to her opinions. He liked that she had opinions. He liked everything about her, even her stubborn belief that she deserved a man who loved her. He stopped pacing, removed his hat, and tunneled his fingers through his hair. “I may very well have, yes. But she’s not going to believe it. I can pen love letters, write poems describing my feelings. She’s not going to believe them. Not when no man before me has ever wanted anything other than the fortune that comes with her.”
“Then I ask you again, what if she had no dowry?”
“If she has no dowry, then I remain an impoverished lord.”
Locke met and held Ashe’s gaze, his intense green eyes reflecting a myriad of questions, the possibilities of answers.
Ashe looked out over the moors. “But if I asked for her hand in marriage under those circumstances, she would have no choice except to believe, to understand, that I wantedher.”
“Well, then, that seems simple enough, doesn’t it? I’ll race you home.”
Locke mounted and was off, before Ashe completed deliberating all the consequences of what he was considering. With a laugh, he climbed into the saddle, urged his horse into a frenzied gallop, and sprinted after the man who fate had deemed would become one of his brothers.
Chapter 20
“MR. Dodger.”
“Ashebury.” Off Jack Dodger’s tongue, the name sounded like an insult. Not that Ashe blamed him. On the way back from Havisham, he’d given a lot of thought as to how to approach the former gambling-house owner. He’d been surprised that the butler had shown him into the man’s library. He was grateful that Minerva, as of yet, didn’t know he’d come to call. “You’re a brave man to show up here after breaking my daughter’s heart.”
“It was not my intention to break her heart.”
“Yet you did it all the same. I’ve killed men for less.”
“Not recently I hope.”
A corner of his mouth shifted up. Minerva had not inherited the shape of her mouth from her father. Perhaps her mother. Otherwise, it was all hers. “Whiskey?”
At least Ashe was assured he’d live long enough for a drink. “I’m a scotch man.”
“I think I have some on hand.”
Ashe watched as Dodger poured scotch into two tumblers. There was nothing delicate in his movements, nothing polished. Every inch of him spoke of a man who had begun his life in the streets. He might have risen above them, but they still clung to him.
He turned toward Ashe and extended a glass. “Have a seat.”
“I prefer to stand.”
“I prefer to sit.” He dropped into the chair behind his desk, took a sip of his scotch, studied Ashe. “So why did you come?”
“To ask you to take away Minerva’s dowry.”
Arching a brow, Dodger slowly set his glass on the desk. “It’s not often I misjudge a man’s purpose in meeting with me. I must say your request has taken me by surprise. Why would I not honor my promise to provide her with a dowry?”
“Because it will always come between us. Because she will always doubt the reason I married her.”
“I don’t recall giving you permission to marry her.”
“But you will because her happiness means everything to you.”
“And you’ll make her happy?”
