Page 43 of The Marquess' Wicked Wager
“You might try to convince me first.”
She stopped her pacing. “For friendship. You’re the type of girl who needs others to look out for her, Edna. Surely, you know this? If not Aunt Violet, then your Marquess. And me.” Janine shook her head, her dark ribbons of hair bobbing around her shoulders. “You would be a Duchess—yet you play at games to throw it all away. If I had caught the attention of a duke, and such a remarkable duke at that, I would not challenge him in the way you have.”
Edna could notevenchance at mouthing her next question before the door at the back of the shop scraped open. Materializing in the darkness, like a shadow come to life,hestepped out. Not the man of her haunting—the man of her nightmares.
“No,” Edna breathed.
“Hello, Miss Worthington,” the Duke of Craster sang. “It is so good to see you again.”
Janine stepped away, and the breeze from her parting wrapped around Edna. She vanished into the dark corner of the room, and it felt like she and the Duke were the only two people on the earth.In hell.
“What do you want?”
“My, my…” He stepped around the counter, and she saw him in full detail. His hair glinted silver in the faint light of the afternoon. His thin mouth was wet with spit. He was dressed in all black, a cross necklace draped over his cravat. There was nothing godly about him. “Did my son rob you of your manners as well as your virtue?”
His words ripped through Edna like a curved blade. “I asked you a question.”
The Duke clucked. He had crept so close to her that he could reach out and touch her. He did not, for now, his arms laced behind him. “You know what it is I want, Miss Worthington. You have known it from the first.” He leaned in so he might whisper in her ear, and it sounded poisonous as he said, “Your hand in marriage.”
Edna fought back the urge to push him away. Her blood coursed through her on fear alone. “I am…compromised to you,” she muttered low. “Society would never hear of our match after my betrothal to your son.”
His long, colorless lips curled into a quirking smile. “Do you really believe that would stop me? I have never bowed down to the whims of theton. A wolf does not belittle himself for the lamb.”
“You would ostracize yourself for me. There is no sense to this.”
“I would go to the ends of the world and back for you, Miss Worthington. To hold you in my arms, to taste you.” He curled a loose ringlet of her hair around his finger. She turned her face away, not wanting to breathe any of him in. “Could you say the same of any other man?” He stepped away completely, and Edna’s head fell forward.
“It does not matter what you alone want.” She felt sullied, the words spilling from her like the wilted petals of a rose. “My father—”
“Your father is a fool.” He turned around, and she could see the wiry muscles beneath his jacket tic. “Not a minute after my loss did he concede to our match. And so, before my son sought to take you for his own, I secured with Robert’s permission a license for the both of us to wed.”
The ground fell from beneath her. “You are lying.”
The Duke merely smiled. “There is only one liar between us, Miss Worthington. Perhaps you mistake me for my son.”
Edna was panting so hard she could barely mouth, “There is no mistaking you for your son.”
“Is that so?” the Duke purred.
“Albert is kind and gallant and smart.”
“Albertis it?” He smirked. “Albert is nothing more than a thorn in my side, a would-be Pierot but a convincing one at that. He has played you into his hand. Do you not see?”
“No.” Edna swallowed back a sob. “No, he has been nothing but good to me, because—”
“Becauseheloves you. Is that what you wish to say?” With a gentle shake of his head, he whispered, “The only thing in this world Albert loves is the thought of vengeance.”
Edna turned to look at Janine. She could just about make out the gleam of her rings. “So…what? You have trapped me here so as to bully me into marriage. Is that it, hm?” She spoke a little louder. “And your underling, is she so convinced by our match? Seems to me she rather fancies you for herself. And my, but do you deserve one another!”
The Duke rolled his shoulder back. “Another man might be quite upset by your defiance, by your indiscipline. Fight, my little dove. It only makes me want youmore.”
Something within Edna snapped for his leering. Without thought, she reached forward and pushed him away. He did not move, smiling. She pushed him again,harder. Still, he stood where he was. “I would ratherdiethan submit myself to you!” she wailed. With a cry that made grout fall from the ceiling, she turned toward the door. “Take me home, or kill me here! It is of no difference to me.”
“Be careful what you wish for, Miss Worthington,” the Duke intonated. And then, like a sudden summer storm, chaos swelled behind the door.
ChapterEighteen
The cool London air whipped past Albert as he stormed through Five Fields. He had not a thought on his mind beside Edna—her name, her smile, her touch. He cursed himself as his mare, Rosehip, turned a corner: first, for ever having dragged her into his life; second, for having let her go.
