Page 6 of The Duke's Auctioned Virgin
“What do we know about him?” Valeria asked, keeping her voice low.
Caroline shifted on the settee. “Not much. Richard says the family has a new title. Very new. And there are rumors.”
“What sort of rumors?” Valeria pressed.
Caroline opened her mouth, then closed it. “The sort I did not want to tell you before today.”
John appeared at Valeria’s elbow. “Ready?”
“Do I look ready?” Valeria muttered.
“You look like you might puke on Sir Marcus’s shoes.”
“That would certainly make an impression.”
“Go,” John urged. “They’re growing restless. Lord Barton has already asked a footman about the wine situation twice.”
Valeria smoothed her dress. It was the green one, the one Caroline picked out. Silk, not muslin. It felt like armor. She had spent twenty minutes in front of the mirror that morning, not out of vanity but out of the same impulse that made a soldier check his rifle before a battle.
Everything had to be right. Hair pinned, but not severe. Jewels, but not too many. She wore her grandmother’s necklace around her throat. Eloise would have loved this. The audacity of it. A woman choosing.
“Valeria,” Caroline’s voice came from below. Sharp. “If you do not come down in the next thirty seconds, I am sending Richard up to fetch you, and he will talk about the baby the whole way down.”
“I am coming,” Valeria called back.
None of them made her feel anything.
Good. She did not need to feel. She needed tothink.
“Gentlemen,” she began. Her voice carried. That surprised her. “Welcome to Thornhill. Thank you for coming. I know this is unusual.”
There was a polite murmur. Someone coughed. Sir Marcus smiled with too many teeth.
“I need a husband. I will not pretend otherwise.” She paused.
Let it land. She was the one talking. She was setting the terms. A room full of men, waiting for her to tell them what came next.
She stood taller. “I am told that the qualities a man seeks in a wife are obedience, fertility, and a nurturing disposition.”
Some of them shifted. Lord Barton looked at the ceiling. Sir Marcus examined his fingernails. The young Viscount’s face had turned so red that a footman was looking at him with concern.
Valeria looked at them,reallylooked, and felt something sink in her chest. These were the men who had come for her. Polite men. Nervous men. Men who stood when a woman entered the room and said the right things and meant none of them.
She had married a man like this once. Charming and correct and hollow underneath.
Not one of them made her feel anything. Not one of them looked like he could protect her from a stiff wind, let alone from the kind of men Mr. Pemberton had warned her about.
The older gentleman near the back, Sir Humphrey Dalton, barked a laugh and then quickly muffled it with a cough. The man beside him gave him a look. Sir Humphrey gave him a look back. The second man looked away first.
“I have decided that what I seek in a husband is rather different.” She clasped her hands together. “Protective. Caring. And funny. Those are the three things I will be testing for. Win, and you might get a bride. Lose, and at least you had a pleasant week in the country.”
Caroline was beaming. Valeria had to look away. John gave her a nod.
Some of the men straightened. Others exchanged looks. The young Viscount’s ears had gone from pink to red.
She opened her mouth to continue when the front doors swung wide. No knock. A tall, broad man walked through, framed by daylight. He did not look like any of them.
The hall fell quiet. Not politely quiet, but something else.
