Jo Beverley - [Rogue ] Read Online Free PDF Page A

After a moment he said, "Now, however, I wish you to marry my daughter."
    The marquess gave up and collapsed into his chair. "That idiot last night must have hit me harder than I thought," he muttered. Or perhaps it was just shock which made his head float apart from his body, his thoughts seem like wisps of mist. One thought could be grasped, however. He had been reprieved, after a fashion. Like a man sentenced to hang who finds he is merely to be flogged.
    The duke rose and poured two glasses of brandy. He thrust one into the marquess's hand and sat once more. "Drink that and pay attention, Arden."
    The fiery liquid flowed down and drove the mist from his brain. The pain of reality returned, but the marquess forced his body to come to order, and prepared to try to make sense of things.
    "After your birth I was under considerable strain. I myself formed a liaison and, unbeknownst to me, a child resulted. I received news of the girl's existence this morning. She has the de Vaux blood, though no one, now her mother is dead, knows of it except us. If you marry her, the line continues."
    Stupidly, the marquess could only think that his father had betrayed his exquisite mother. "I have a better idea," he said bitterly. "Make her your heir."
    The duke's voice was as chilly as a dash of cold water. "You are being nonsensical again. Are you refusing to do this?"
    In his pain, with his devastated pride, the marquess longed to do just that, to throw the whole business in the duke's face and tell him to go to hell and take his bastard with him. But the pride of the de Vaux was in him, no matter how little it seemed he deserved it, and he struggled for an icy control to match the duke's.
    "Do we know anything at all of this girl?" he drawled.
    "Her age. She is just turned twenty-four, nearly a year younger than you."
    "Firmly on the shelf, in other words," observed the marquess coolly. "She's doubtless an antidote."
    "Is that your primary consideration?"
    "It seems natural enough to wish to share one's life with a woman one finds congenial," remarked the marquess flippantly. "Where does my bride live?"
    "In Cheltenham. She is a teacher at a ladies seminary run by a Miss Mallory, who is an old friend of the girl's mother."
    "A blue stocking antidote. Oh well," said the marquess with an assumption of callous indifference, "we must hope that, unlike Prinny, I can do my duty."
    "Even the prince begot a daughter," the duke pointed out.
    "But that, as we know, is of no use to us." The marquess could endure this discussion no longer. He did not know whether he was likely to strike his father—the duke—or fall weeping at his feet, but neither was desirable. He rose to his feet with control but did not meet the other man's eyes. "Is there more to be discussed? I have engagements."
    "I am having enquiries made about the girl. I only traveled down with urgency because your mother said you might offer for the Swinnamer girl."
    A pretty china doll whom he had begun to think would do as well as any other for marriage. "I assure you I have given up the notion entirely," said the marquess carelessly, then realized he was shredding a tassel on the chair by which he stood.
    "Are you claiming a broken heart?" asked the duke. "What then of Mistress Blanche?"
    The marquess crushed the tassel in his fist. "Men have these arrangements," he said bitterly and looked up to meet the duke's eyes. "Surely you are aware of it, My Lord Duke."
    With that he turned on his heel and escaped.
    The duke sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. He had never expected the interview to be pleasant. He was sorry, though, for the pain he had caused the boy. He had spoken the truth when he said he wished the marquess was his own son. He would have been proud.
    He was wild, yes, a touch of St. Briac the duke did not appreciate, but nothing had ever besmirched his honor, and he had a keen brain. The duke had no qualms about passing the tremendous burdens of the Duchy of Belcraven