The Duke's Accidental Wife (Dukes of War Book 7) Read Online Free PDF

to find her prostrate with mortification. Or perhaps smug with satisfaction, if the gossips were right about every woman’s innate desire to become a duchess.
    Miss Ross didn’t look delighted at her unexpected new fortune. She looked like she was going to cry.
    Devil take it.
    Ravenwood’s spine snapped into its habitual commanding posture. A sudden betrothal was the last thing either of them had planned, but becoming the new Duchess of Ravenwood was hardly the end of the world. For someone like her, ’twould be a giant step forward.
    “Miss Ross.” He forced himself to voice the dreaded words that had now become inevitable. “Would you do me the great honor—”
    “It’s no honor,” she muttered back, glaring at his wet shoes. “This is a nightmare for both of us.”
    Well. At least she acknowledged the truth. Ravenwood grabbed her hand and turned toward the jostling spectators. “She said yes!”
    She dug her fingernails into his skin. “I didn’t say yes. You didn’t finish your sentence.”
    “Do you want this to become even more of a farce than it already is?” he asked through clenched teeth, forcing himself not to grab her. “If that bucket hadn’t been there—”
    “If you hadn’t followed me somewhere you certainly didn’t belong—”
    “If you hadn’t forced me into attending this ridiculous gala—”
    “If you didn’t have such a large stick up your arse—”
    “If you could act like a lady for just once in your flighty, spoiled little life—”
    “Congratulations,” Lambley boomed. He yanked Miss Ross to safety before Ravenwood could throttle her for making a horrible situation even worse. “You may call upon us tomorrow to work out the details.”
    Ravenwood allowed his mask of ducal impenetrability to engulf him, cloaking his frustration behind an emotionless façade.
    He inclined his head toward Lambley. The bounder was right. Duty before all else. He would not lower himself to arguing again. Not now, not tomorrow, not even when that pretty termagant became his wife.
    Duty first. Nothing else mattered.
    Not even his own happiness.

Chapter Four

    Kate trudged into her Egyptian themed parlor and threw herself into the carved wooden chair across from her Aunt Havens.
    The sun streamed merrily through the tall, rectangular windows on this beautiful June day, yet Kate gazed about her favorite room of the townhouse without her usual joy and satisfaction.
    This was her townhouse. Her parlor. Her carefully themed rooms, decorated with minute accuracy down to the hue of the paint and the stitching on the chair cushions.
    It had taken Kate her entire adult life to coax her Mayfair townhouse from an empty skeleton into a home she could be proud of. Each room a living replica of a moment in history. Each item purchased using the modest sum she’d inherited when her parents had died far too young.
    Not only would she be expected to leave it all behind after the wedding—it wouldn’t even belong to her anymore.
    As soon as the marriage contract was signed and the ceremony completed, everything Kate had dedicated her purposefully spinsterish life to building would immediately become sole property of the Duke of Ravenwood.
    She wished she’d thrown the bucket at him on purpose.
    “How can you sit there and embroider on a day like this?” she groused to her aunt.
    Kate frowned. Perhaps Aunt Havens had the right of it. Heaven knew what she’d be “allowed” to do once they were under Ravenwood’s thumb. This might be her last chance to run out and spend every penny she owned.
    Not that she would. Ravenwood might not even let her keep her purchases. How was Kate to know what a duke might do? Especially a duke as notoriously cold and severe as Ravenwood. She drew in a shaky breath. Selling off her treasures would break her heart worse than never owning them in the first place.
    Aunt Havens lowered her embroidery to her lap and peered at Kate. “Is he a nice man? Might he make you