Meg shook her head. “You are incorrigible. And you know very well that dukes don’t marry penniless girls.”
“I can dowry you.”
She shook her head again. “That’s kind of you, Your Grace.” It was a tempting daydream, even if Dougal wasn’t involved. To have options. Add Dougal with his confidence and his kindness and those wicked eyes and it was too good to be true. She must remember that.
“So stubborn.”
“Almost as stubborn as you,” Priya said drily.
“Meg is still a viscount’s daughter,” Pendleton continued. “And he has to marry. Soon.”
“You did seem to get along well,” Tamsin pointed out.
“Traitor,” Meg muttered. They could never know that he’d punched Lord Eaton partially on her account. She refused to blush just thinking about it.
“He is a little violent,” Tamsin allowed.
“There, you see,” Meg said.
“Which makes him even more perfect for you.”
Meg frowned. “I beg your pardon.”
“You’re the blood-thirstiest of us all. And I collect body parts.”
Pendleton’s smugness was palpable. He glanced at Priya. “Before you get any ideas, I’m not marrying again,” she told him flatly.
“Don’t you want companionship?”
“I don’t need marriage for that.”
The duke choked on his coffee. “Priya! You’d say such things to an old man?”
“Find me an old man and let’s see,” she returned.
“You can’t mean it.”
“I am a widow with a considerable fortune. Why on earth should I give that up?”
“For love?”
“Would you give up your fortune for love? Your ability to make decisions for yourself? Sign contracts. Be an actual person in the eyes of the law?” He sputtered. “Exactly so,” she said smugly. “Now about these Cinderella balls.”
He looked mutinous. “Tamsin and Clara and Meg and the others might want to marry, even if you do not.”
“True, which is why you cannot invite Lord Eaton to these affairs any longer.”
“I hazarded as much when Thorncroft laid him flat,” he said. “Though no one will tell me why.”
“He’s lecherous.”
Pendleton’s scowl was thunderous. “Has he touched you? Any of you?”
They didn’t reply. He swore viciously, which he never did in their presence. “That’s why Henry…”
“Henry did what?” Tamsin asked.
“He drove Eaton clear out of the house. He left at dawn for London. Henry too.”