CHAPTER5
Verity felt frightened and hopeful. The bewildering duality of the emotions clashing inside her set her teeth to aching. To be this man’s…this stranger’s duchess. His wife. Perhaps never his lover. But this might be what she and Artie needed to turn the tide of everything wrong and desperate and uncertain for the last two years. This might be what she needed to do to ensure she was in little Thomas’s life forever. This is what I need to do to keep my family together.
“I cannot believe the woman who broke into my home with the plan to steal a child has been rendered speechless. Or does she plot?”
She flushed. The duke thought her a diabolical cretin. “I…I truly am uncertain what to say. I never expected this, Your Grace, and you are remarkably calm about the entire affair.”
“Say you’ll be my duchess.”
Verity swallowed. This was madness. “If you knew the true measure of my public standing, you would not have so casually offered me any sort of attachment.” Oh, Verity, what are you doing? Still, she continued, “My reputation is…is rather dubious.”
“That is how I like them, dubious and broken,” he said mildly. “A perfect match to mine.”
The retort strangled in her throat. “You under state the matter, Your Grace,” she whispered.
“I am certain you will enlighten me.”
Verity closed her eyes briefly before she met his regard. “While you are called the Devil Duke in some circles, no one blocks you from drawing rooms or chases you from shops. You are still invited to all ton events; men bow when you walk past them, and ladies dip into respectful curtsies. Some even drop their handkerchief at your feet, and some climb into your bed at house parties. You, my good duke, are not shunned, and despite your notoriety of being a duke who is intimately familiar with all sins, many families secretly dream of being aligned with yours. I have been to church with little Thomas and was asked to leave while the entire congregation, including my parents, stared us down with rebuke and condemnation. I have been denied the simple pleasure of buying laces and hats from the town’s milliner, and even had an egg tossed at me.”
Her voice cracked on those last words, and she squared her shoulders.
“Do you regret it?” he asked with chilling indifference.
“No,” she said tightly, even though her heart ached something fierce. “I made a decision, and I understood then I would live with the consequences.”
Though she had been a naïve seventeen-year-old, she was appalled at her mother and father turning their backs on their daughter. Verity had been affianced within six weeks of her coming-out, and all those hopes and silly dreams were dashed when the swollen state of her sister’s belly had been revealed. Verity had chosen to be in exile with her sister, living in a modest cottage in Hertfordshire. She had chosen to stand by Catherine when their fabricated tale that she was a widow had crumbled, and not even the local butcher would sell meat to their household. She had stood firm because little Thomas was a sweet, beautiful blessing that must be protected at all costs.
“I do not regret it,” Verity said, some of that ache traveling from her throat to burn behind her eyes.
Oh, God, do not cry, Verity!
“Good,” he said flatly.
“So I do not mistake the matter, this will be a marriage of convenience with no children.”
“Yes.”
She hated how dispassionate he sounded, as if they did not discuss a matter most important, a joining of life until death. “If I should refuse?”
“You will be a part of Thomas's life as my wife. Let me be clear, Lady Verity, that is the only way you will see him.”
The cruel words were like a harsh blow that pushed her back a step. “He is my nephew,” she said, her voice hoarse. “You have no right to keep me from him.”
“Wrong,” he said with something akin to icy contempt. “You have nothing to offer him.”
“I love him and—”
“Love! What utter nonsense.”
This time there was no mistaking the contempt.
“Can love clothe and feed him? Can it send him to the best schools and provide him with a decent living when he is of age? What can your love and a reputation that will ensure he has no place in the world serve him? Do you have money for yourself? A way out for him? What will your love do, other than ruin him further? What power do you have of your own to see him have a good life?”
He took a step toward her, his walking stick tapping the ground with jarring menace. He brought with him an air of icy indifference until she looked at his eyes. They burned with a fire of purpose she did not understand, and with an awful sinking feeling low in her stomach, Verity realized she would never be able to wrest Thomas from his grasp.
“I offer him a life of dignity and wealth. He will be my son in every way that is possible. He will inherit my dukedom and all my wealth.”
“That is not possible,” she said, “He…there are no records he is yours or any of his birth…”