Page 7 of The Duke Meets His Match

She sat still, afraid to breathe.

This was what she’d feared. How did he know, dammit?

She mentally debated lying or bursting into female hysterics, but she instinctively knew those tricks wouldn’t work on him.

She raised her chin and pushed her shoulders back, bold as brass. “I have no idea what you are talking about. I would never bother with simple handkerchiefs when I could lift a fat purse just as easily.”

A moment of frigid silence passed, then he threw his head back and laughed richly. She was taken aback by his reaction, and her eyes were riveted to the corded muscles of his throat.

“Bravo! I expected a simpering miss and an adamant denial.” He leaned forward, his broad shoulders straining against the fabric of his shirt. Her gaze snapped back to his face and her unease returned in earnest. His humor didn’t quite reach those icy dark eyes.

“I know about your past,” he said. “Your father was Jonathan Miller, the infamous art forger of the ton, who fleeced many, then abandoned his three daughters rather than face imprisonment. Thereafter, you opened the Peacock Print Shop to survive. You were all shopkeepers.”

“It’s no longer a secret.” Their father’s crimes had left them destitute and desperate. If it were not for Eliza’s business sense and for Amelia’s talent with a paintbrush, they would still be in a St. Giles rookery. Both the Earls of Huntingdon and Vale knew, and neither had cared, when they married her sisters. Their pasts were forgotten. At least her sisters’ pasts.

Chloe’s past was a bit different.

“You are the youngest, correct? I assume you tired of working the long hours of a shopkeeper and thought to supplement your income by thievery.”

Clenching her teeth, her temper flared. “You know nothing, Your Grace,” she snapped. Of course, he would think the worst of her. A man in his position had never known hardship.

“I know enough,” he said, his voice low but dangerous.

“Henry…I mean, Lord Sefton looks up to you. He idolizes you.”

The duke’s expression was grim. “I owe his father my life. I won’t let him be fooled by a fortune-scheming miss.”

The barb hurt, like salt on an open wound. Why did the duke have to be Henry’s self-appointed ‘guardian’? Why couldn’t it have been anyone else?

She buried the bitterness his accusation stirred in her heart and tried to reason with him. “How can I assure you that my past is long forgotten? We have all started a new life. I have no intention of hurting Henry. I truly like him.”

“You like him?” His expression was mocking.

Her stomach fluttered at the coldness in the duke’s eyes. “Yes.”

“Then send him away. Discourage his interest. Set your feminine trap for another unsuspecting man.”

Another surge of anger made her breath burn in her throat. Who was he to pass such quick judgment? A man born in luxury, an aristocrat whose place in the ton was guaranteed from the day of his birth, a duke who was one step below royalty.

He’d never known hunger or cold or prolonged illness because he couldn’t afford medicine from the apothecary or care from a physician.

She pushed a wayward tendril of hair away from her cheek. His eyes followed her movements, making her uneasy. “I won’t be bullied. Both Huntingdon and Vale will protect me.”

She was bluffing. Her sisters didn’t know of her past exploits to get the money they’d so desperately needed, and she had no intention of telling them. Her brothers-in-law had no idea, either. It was a secret she planned to take to her grave.

The duke’s knowledge of her past was her weakness. A chink in her armor.

Sipping his drink, he leaned back in his chair, a confident expression on his handsome face. “Then you will force me to reveal the truth about your past. The entire truth. Would you put your family through such a trial when all you have to do to protect them is discourage one suitor?”

She met his hard eyes without flinching. She refused to be bullied by him. She was a fighter. A survivor. “I won’t do it. And you shall keep my secret.”

His eyes flashed. “Oh? Why is that?”

“Because Henry has already suffered from the death of his father. Telling him my past will only cause him further undue distress.” She might be uncertain about how far the duke would go to ruin her, but she knew he’d promised Henry’s father that he would look after his son. If she were lucky, that responsibility would extend to Henry’s emotional well-being.

Cameron’s eyes narrowed, and he lowered his glass. “A worthy opponent. You fascinate me, Chloe Somerton.”

“You make it sound as if you are never challenged.”