She regarded him with her chin lifted, attempting bravery and nearly succeeding at it. The fear lived in her throat—in the small, repeated motion of swallowing—rather than in her face. He watched her jaw set against it, and looked away a beat too late.
“I am, Your Grace.”
His finger tapped against his teacup with steady beats.
“You realise you will be expected to accept me into your bed.”
“Yes.”
“From the wedding night. I have no time to waste.”
“I am aware.”
He rose and went to the window. The glass was blurred with rain. Beyond it the drive was a dark line between dark trees and the sky above them had not yet decided whether to lighten.
“What do you know? Exactly.”
She hesitated, biting the inside of her cheek. “Thetoncalls you the Reaper of Iredell on account of having buried three wives.”
The anger came up fast as the memory of theton’s condemnation surfaced. He recognised the heat behind his ribs and pressed down before it reached his face. He turned, then: “And you are willing to be the fourth.”
She swallowed, opened her mouth then closed it, then opened it again. “Did you kill them?”
He pinned her with his gaze, unblinking. No one had dared to say those words in his presence. Yet this woman in her worn dress and bare hands, who was negotiating for her own marriage in a freezing room, had said them.
“No.”
“Forgive me, but the rumour is that you drowned your second wife. Poisoned the third. And the first…”
“Continue, Miss Linton.” His voice had gone quiet. She flinched. “I find your accounts informative. Refreshing, even.”
She sat up straighter. “That you shot your first wife. And before you decide to lash out at me, please remember that I have every right to ask the man I might marry whether he is a killer. I can live with a cursed duke, Your Grace. I cannot live with a murderous one.”
A single laugh came out of him. Short, rough, startled out of him before he could catch it. He had not made that sound infront of another person in longer than he could remember. He saw her expression shift, and he turned to the window before she could read whatever had come across his face.
“I need a settlement, Your Grace.” Her voice had changed. She was on solid ground now. Numbers, terms, survival. “Upon my mother and my sisters. Of an amount sufficient to lift this house from its present state, to dower my four sisters, and to bring Primrose out properly this Season under a respectable roof.”
He angled his body to meet her eyes. “Name your price, Miss Linton.”
She held his gaze. “Two thousand pounds, Your Grace.”
Reasonable. Perhaps she was not entirely mad.
“Half on the day of the wedding,” he said. “After the consummation. The remainder upon the birth of a living child.”
“No.”
“Miss Linton.”
“All of it. Before the wedding.”
“You ask me to pay in full before I have received anything.”
“I do.”
“And what prevents you from changing your mind at the door of the church?”
“Pay my family the night before the wedding, I shall have no time to run.”
