Rosalie felt a wave of shock go through her. After the way he’d acted yesterday, and how he’d discarded the bouquet, she hadn’t seen this coming. Before she could answer, however, he kept going.
“Both our reputations are at stake. I know that thetonloves to gossip about me as if I am a villainous rake, but I assure you, very little of what the gossip rags say is true. And I have certainlynevertaken liberties with a young woman. I would not like it said that I disrespected you, nor will I tolerate anything dishonorable being said about you. Which is why I am here, offering you marriage.”
Rosalie unstuck her throat. “But yesterday, you left the library so suddenly… I was sure you weren’t going to offer for me.”
“Things happened quickly yesterday,” he conceded, “and I was in shock. But I am here to do the right thing.”
The right thing.Why was the right thing so often the thing that made two people most miserable?
“That is very honorable,” she began slowly, “but there is still the small matter that we do not know one another. We cannot marry when we haven’t the faintest idea of whether or not we will be a suitable match!”
“I don’t want this either,” he said, and Rosalie felt as if she had been hit in the stomach. She tried to control her expression, but she clearly wasn’t successful because his expression softened as did his voice.
“You forget that it isn’t merely our reputations that are at stake,” he murmured. “You also have your sisters to think about, and I must consider my cousin. James has only just gotten his duchy back in order after his father turned it into a free-for-all for gangs to run dog-fighting rings and sell opium. We cannot compromise the reputation he has worked so hard to rebuild. And your sisters’ reputations…”
He trailed off, and a terrible weight seemed to settle over Rosalie’s shoulders. She knew he was right. And yet…
“I’ve spent my whole life reading romantic novels,” she whispered. “I wanted a love match.”
The Duke’s jaw set, and his voice became cold. “Well, as we discussed the other day: life isn’t a novel.”
It was exactly the kind of thing her father might have said to her. He, too, always used to chide her that she lived in a fantasy world born from too much reading. And hearing the Duke utter the words, she was overcome by a powerful sense of despair.
The last thing I wanted was to marry a man like Father,she thought bitterly.
“If this is not what you want, you only have to tell me,” the Duke said, and she looked up to see him watching her closely. “If you make it clear that you do not want to marry me, then I will not force anything, and I will never darken your doorstep again.”
This, at least, was very unlike her father, and Rosalie sucked in her breath. “Really?” she asked. “It’s my choice.”
“Of course, it is,” he snapped. “I’m not a monster.”
Her eyes widened, and he seemed to realize what he’d said because he scowled.
“Can I think about it?” she asked. “Have a day or two to sleep on it?”
His scowl deepened. “The longer you delay, the more the scandal will spread. There will be no point in us announcing an engagement in a week if our reputations are already ruined by then.”
She nodded. There was sense in that. Thetondid not easily forgive or forget a scandal.
For a moment, however, she let herself think through all the options: marrying the Duke of Carramere, a man she feared and hardly knew but who at least was related to her sister’s husband which meant she would still see her sisters often and of course, escape scandal.
Or live with scandal and resign herself to the life of a spinster or worse, be forced to marry a man she hated out of desperation.
There was a time when Rosalie might have risked the life of a spinster, a time when her faith in love and in life working out like in a romance might have made her refuse the Duke.
But that time was long gone. Too many terrible things had happened since then. And she no longer had faith that love was waiting for her.
At last, she nodded, and then she let her head hang.
“You need to say it,” the Duke said sharply, and she forced herself to look back up at him. He took a step towards her, and the dark, masculine energy that radiated from him seemed to draw her in because she also took a step forward. It was frightening, she realized—the power he emanated.
“I need to hear you say that you’ll marry me,” he murmured.
“I will marry you,” she whispered, and for a second, his eyes seemed to blaze.
She couldn’t look away. Her heart was beating faster. She was now sweating under her armpits and behind her knees. She felt faint, light-headed, and?—
“Good,” he said, and the moment of intensity passed. Rosalie took a deep breath as she came back to herself. “Well. I will speak to your cousin in the morning.”
