"Well," she said with forced lightness, "at least I'll be miserable in style."
But later, alone in the darkness of her room, she allowed herself to feel the full weight of what was coming. The Duke of Montclaire didn't want a wife but he wanted to keep his estate. She didn't want a husband but she wanted to be left alone with her flowers and books and quiet life.
They would be perfect for each other in their mutual disappointment.
The thought was cold comfort as she stared at the ceiling, imagining tomorrow's humiliation. The duke would come, proud and resentful. Her brothers would bristle and posture. She would sit quietly, the forgotten Coleridge daughter suddenly remembered, suddenly valuable, suddenly trapped.
Just once, she thought as sleep finally claimed her, just once I'd like to be wanted for myself. Not because I'm useful. Not because I'm the only option. But because someone actually chose me.
But that was found in novels, not real life.
And tomorrow, real life would arrive at their door wearing an expensive coat and an expression of barely concealed disgust.
She could hardly wait.
Chapter Three
The eighth Duke of Montclaire was having a perfectly dreadful morning, and it hadn't even reached ten o'clock.
"Your Grace," his valet, Sinclair, ventured carefully, "perhaps the burgundy waistcoat would be more..."
"The black." Alexander stood before his mirror like a man preparing for his own execution, which, in a sense, he was. "Everything black."
"Rather funereal, Your Grace."
"How appropriate, as I'm about to bury my dignity." He adjusted his cravat with the precision of a man who believed that perfect neckwear might somehow salvage an impossible situation. "Tell me, Sinclair, have you ever been forced to prostrate yourself before your enemies?"
"Not recently, Your Grace."
"Well, I don't recommend it. It's remarkably bad for one's posture."
Sinclair wisely said nothing, merely holding out the rejected burgundy waistcoat with the persistence of a man who'd been dressing dukes for twenty years and wasn't about to stop now.
"The black," Alexander repeated firmly. "If I must go begging to the Coleridges, I'll at least look like I'm mourning my self-respect."
The valet sighed but produced the requested black waistcoat, though his expression suggested he was mourning something too; possibly his employer's good sense.
Alexander surveyed the final result in the glass. Perfect. He looked exactly like what he was: a man of impeccable breeding being forced to do something unspeakable. The effect was rather spoiled, however, by his cousin Frederick's sudden arrival.
"My goodness," Frederick announced, breezing into the bedchamber without so much as a knock. "You look like you're attending your own funeral."
"How prescient of you. I am."
"Don't be dramatic. It doesn't suit you." Frederick threw himself into a chair with the carelessness of someone who'd never met a piece of furniture he couldn't make friends with. "It's just marriage."
"To a Coleridge."
"Yes, well, we all have our crosses to bear. Mine is an inability to win at cards. Yours is apparently matrimony to a merchant's daughter. Though I must say, yours comes with a better income."
Alexander turned from the mirror to fix his cousin with a glare that had been known to send parliamentary opponents into retreat. "Did you come here for a reason, or are you simply practicing being irritating?"
"Can't it be both?" Frederick grinned, unperturbed. "Actually, I came to offer my services. Moral support and all that. Someone needs to keep you from actually doing anything foolish."
"I don't need moral support. I need a miracle. Or perhaps a convenient bout of plague."
"The Coleridges aren't that bad," Frederick said, though his tone suggested otherwise.
"The Coleridges," Alexander said with the kind of precise enunciation typically reserved for pronouncing death sentences, "are exactly that bad. Have you forgotten the Jennings’ ball? The eldest one practically counted the silver. And those twins; laughing at their own jests, which weren't even amusing."
