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Eloise felt the color drain from her cheeks as her hands fell numb.
“You can refuse, of course. But you’ll remain on the shelf for the rest of your life—you won’t have any friends, you won’t find a husband, and you’ll probably be sent off to a country house, or even better, to some old-fashioned puritans. They know how to deal with women like you. The Lyndon family name will be mud, no better than the riff-raff off the London streets.”
She clenched her jaw tight, holding herself in place, as now, she wanted to lunge out at him. Everything he said was true; she would be ruined, and along with her, so would her family. Kate wouldn’t be able to find a husband after this, and even Uncle Marcus would begin to despise her. If being exiled from Simon and the ton wasn’t enough, soon she would be exiled from her only family too. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she wiped them with the heels of her hands.
“I don’t want to marry you,” she repeated in a soft whisper.
“And you think I do? It’s your inheritance I’m after, not you. If you weren’t an heiress, I’d have found someone charming and beautiful by now,” James said.
She took a deep, shaky breath, bracing herself for further insult.
“You will marry me,” he continued. “Or everyone will know, Lady Eloise is a fallen woman.”
