Page 1 of A Bride for the Ruthless Duke

CHAPTER ONE

“My sister, Your Grace. I am offering you my sister.”

Theodore Pillard, Duke of Rosanne, did not immediately answer. He let the words remain where Henry Middleton had placed them, between the polished edge of the desk and the young man’s whitening fingers, and continued trimming the end of his quill as though offers of sisters were made in his library every Tuesday. They were not.

Henry swallowed. “I am aware that it is an irregular beginning.”

“It is several things, Lord Middleton,” Theodore said, setting the small knife beside the inkstand. “Irregular is among the kinder of them.”

“I had meant to approach the matter more delicately.”

“Then you were wise to abandon the attempt. Delicacy rarely survives desperation.”

The young man shifted his weight. He had been left in the hall for an hour and twenty minutes before Theodore admitted him, having been told only that the matter was urgent. A man who came to a duke’s door with urgency in his mouth ought to learn the price of urgency before he spent the rest of what he had.

Henry’s gaze moved once toward the empty chair across the desk.

Theodore looked at him steadily. “You may stand until I understand whether I am receiving a petition, a confession, or an insult.”

“A petition, Your Grace.” Henry’s answer came too quickly, too smoothly, as if he had polished it in advance and feared that hesitation would show the tarnish underneath. “Though I will own it has the appearance of something less respectable.”

“That is a generous description.”

“I do not ask you to think well of me.”

“How fortunate, since you have made that unnecessary.”

A faint flush rose above Henry’s collar, yet he kept himself upright. Theodore noted the effort. Four-and-twenty, perhaps, and frightened enough to look younger. The coat was good and a season old; the boots had been polished by a servant kept well past the point of fair wages. He had not been drinking, which counted for something, since it meant a sober man had thought about selling his sister long enough to come and do it on purpose.

“I expected,” Theodore said, “that this visit concerned your notes.”

Henry’s expression altered before he could master it.

Theodore leaned back. “You are surprised.”

“I had hoped,” Henry said carefully, “that Your Grace might not know of them in such detail.”

“I hold three of them.”

Henry’s breath caught. “You hold them?”

“Through a wine merchant in the Strand, who takes a small commission and asks no questions. I bought them two months ago.”

“For what purpose?”

“The purpose had not yet presented itself.”

Henry stared at him, and for the first time since entering the room, indignation managed to rise through fear. “You purchased my debts without intending to collect them?”

“I purchased inconvenience, Lord Middleton. It is often undervalued by young men and rarely by anyone older.”

“My father once offended you,” Henry said, with a strained attempt at steadiness. “That is the reason, is it not?”

“Your late father once cast a vote that cost me an afternoon’s irritation.”

“And so you bought my notes.”

“And so I bought your notes.”