Page 20 of The Duke's Sinful Deal
“She will be furious,” Gwen continued.
“Yes.”
“And she will want answers you may not yet be prepared to give.”
Arabella drew in a slow breath, steadying herself before releasing it again. “Then I shall prepare them,” she said. “I will not allow this to harm her. Or James. Or their household.”
Gwen regarded her for a long moment, then nodded. “You are very certain.”
“I think I should be at this point,” Arabella replied. “There is nothing that can be said or done to undo this.”
Gwen allowed the silence to settle briefly before shifting the conversation toward more practical matters. “There will be much to arrange,” she said. “The license, the ceremony, the announcements. It will need to be done quickly.”
Arabella rose slowly, her hand slipping free as William was guided back toward his nursemaid. “Yes,” she said, her thoughts already moving ahead. “I imagine there will be little time for… anything else.”
Gwen’s gaze lingered on her. “You may find that time presents itself regardless.”
Arabella did not respond immediately.
Her mind had already begun to turn toward the man at the center of it all. Toward the way he had spoken. The way he had withdrawn. The things he had not said.
“I wonder,” she said at last, more quietly now, “if I shall ever truly know him.”
The question remained between them, unanswered.
And though the day continued, filled with preparations and quiet discussions of what must come next, Arabella found that the thought did not leave her.
Not even for a moment.
CHAPTER 7
“You will tell me this is a poor attempt at humor.”
The study door struck the wall with more force than necessary before swinging back on its hinges, the latch catching with a dull click. Maxwell did not rise from behind his desk. He remained seated, one hand resting against a stack of neatly ordered papers, the other loosely holding a letter that had already been opened and set aside once before. Roderick crossed the length of the room without waiting to be announced, his boots muffled by the thick rug, his coat still dusted from travel.
The door had barely closed behind him before the question was thrown between them, sharp and immediate, carrying none of the usual ease that marked Roderick’s presence.
“It is not,” Maxwell replied.
Roderick stopped a few feet from the desk, his shoulders still lifted from the momentum of his entrance. His expressiontightened in a way Maxwell had seen only rarely, his jaw shifting as he drew in a measured breath. “You are engaged,” he said, as though testing the words for weakness. “To Miss Arabella Barker?”
“Yes.”
“To be married within days?”
“Yes.”
The fire cracked softly in the hearth to Maxwell’s right, the only interruption to the brief silence that followed. Roderick dragged a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his forehead before letting it fall again, slightly disordered now. “And you thought a letter would suffice?”
Maxwell set the folded paper aside with deliberate precision, aligning it with the others. “It conveyed the necessary information.”
“It conveyed nothing of consequence,” Roderick shot back, stepping closer. His gloved hand came down briefly against the edge of the desk, not striking it, but firm enough to signal restraint. “You wrote to inform me that the lady I entrusted to your care is now to become your wife, and you expect me to accept it without question.”
Maxwell’s gaze lifted then, steady and unyielding. “You may question it,” he said. “It will not alter the outcome.”
Roderick held his stare for a moment longer, then turned away with a short, incredulous breath that bordered on a laugh but carried no humor. He paced toward the window, pulling the curtain aside with two fingers to glance out before letting it fall again. “You always did have a remarkable way of presenting disaster as inevitability,” he said. “Explain it.”
Maxwell leaned back slightly in his chair, the wood giving a faint creak beneath his weight. “There is little to explain. Circumstances required a resolution. Marriage was the most effective solution.”
