Page 10 of The Boxing Baroness

His eyes slowly rose to hers and a hot spike of physical awareness shot straight to her core at his darkened gaze.

A sudden image assaulted her—the duke looming over her, his hard, beautiful face tight with another emotion, his pale skin flushing for a different reason, his breathing strained, his—

Marianne blinked away the erotic image. Good Lord. Where had that come from?

“What is this all about?” she asked more sharply than she’d intended.

“I recently received a letter from your lover, Baron Strickland.”

Of all the possible topics of conversation he might have raised, Dominic Strickland would have been her last guess.

But Marianne earned her bread and butter responding to unexpected jabs, so she quickly found her footing. “Have you been visiting spiritualists and communing with ghosts, Your Grace? Or are you the only person in Britain who did not hear about the baron’s death almost a year ago?”

“It appears reports of his demise might have been premature.” He extracted a small cluster of keys from a coat pocket and unlocked a drawer in the middle of his desk.

When his piercing gaze lowered to the drawer, Marianne briefly closed her eyes and inhaled a shaky breath. Dom is alive? Impossible! She felt feverish and dizzy, her heart thrashing as if it were trying to beat its way out of her chest.

Take hold of yourself. Or would you like to appear a fool in front of this man?

Marianne forced her eyes open just as the duke slid a letter across the desk with his pale, long-fingered hand, the monstrous sapphire in his signet glittering in the low light of the library.

Against her will, she leaned forward to look at the letter.

Her stomach pitched as if she were on the deck of a ship, and she lifted a hand to her mouth at the familiar, distinctive script. Dominic was a sinister who’d been beaten as a child when he’d refused to use his right hand. Instead of hiding his left-handedness, he had enjoyed emphasizing the odd slant by employing the most flowery script Marianne had ever seen. The S in the word Staunton was so ornate, it reminded her of a medieval illumination.

If it was not Dominic Strickland’s handwriting, then the letter was written by somebody who’d made an excellent forgery. Marianne worried her lower lip, unable to look away from the letter.

Dom is alive.

Her pulse quickened just thinking his name. Fear, dread, shame, and hate swirled in her fluttering belly. She swallowed several times, but the lump in her throat remained. “Why would you believe this might interest me?” she finally asked.

“Because he mentions you in his letter.”

She wrenched her eyes away from the missive and met Staunton’s opaque stare. “What does he say?”

“You may read it.”

Marianne’s eyes lowered, as if pulled by some invisible force, and she stared at the letter with all the caution she’d show a live viper. Her hands were heavy, as though gloved in lead, and they refused to move to take the seemingly harmless piece of paper.

What could Dominic possibly have to say that would interest her? I’m sorry I asked you to marry me when I was already married? I’m sorry I staged a fake wedding ceremony in order to bed you?

Humiliation flooded her at the memory of the last time she’d seen him. Although it hadn’t been even a year ago, she had been so heartbreakingly naïve. In a span of only a few days Dominic had stripped Marianne of both her innocence and her ability to ever trust another man. At least no aristocratic man.

Bile rose in her throat as her memories—which she’d so carefully buried—unearthed themselves, rising like specters from their graves.

Marianne clenched her teeth, horrified that she might cast up her accounts right here on the duke’s luxurious carpets.

No. No. She would not shame herself again for Dominic.

She sat back in her chair and looked up. “I don’t wish to read it.”

Some emotion flickered across his face. Disbelief? Anger? Disappointment?

“I don’t care what he has to say, Your Grace,” she said, although he hadn’t asked. “Perhaps you should bring this letter to his wife, the real baroness. Does she know that her husband is alive?”

“I have not shared the information with her. The financial position Strickland left her in forced her to remarry quickly.”

Marianne should feel satisfaction at the thought of what a mess Dominic’s resurrection would mean for the baroness. After all, Caroline Strickland had treated Marianne as if she were lower than dirt the one time they’d had the misfortune to meet.