When Marrying a Duke...

‘That’s too bad. Get in.’

‘I most certainly will not.’

‘Shut up,’ he hissed, his voice like acid.

As he shoved her inside without gentleness, her ill-fitting shoe came off and dropped into the street. Cursing softly, he picked it up and thrust it into her hands. In a silky, dangerous voice, he said, ‘Be still. I am averse to leaving you to the mercy of an opium-soaked idiot.’

Clutching her shoe, taking judicious note of the taut set of his jaw and feeling the first tendril of fear coil in the pit of her stomach, Marietta did as she was told. She didn’t think she could escape and, anyway, she would only enrage him further. Besides, if she didn’t let him vent his wrath now, he would undoubtedly tell her father—which he would probably do anyway. She shot him a mutinous, measuring look. He looked dangerous and invincible. She already knew he had a vile temper. She judged from the ominous look in his silver-grey eyes that he was even now considering shaking her for her idiocy. Rather than give him the satisfaction, she sat frigidly in the sedan while he walked briskly along side.

Steeling herself to endure the journey home, she sat in angry silence all the way, relieved when the coolies carrying the sedan halted outside the gate. She scrambled out, impatient to be rid of her persecutor.

Chapter Two

Instructing the coolies to wait, Max looked down at Marietta, his face hard. ‘I’ll have a word with your father before I go.’

‘He isn’t at home.’

‘Then I’ll catch up with him later. He should know what his daughter gets up to in his absence—for your own good, you understand.’

‘No, I do not understand,’ she flared. ‘Tell me, Lord Trevellyan, are you really as heartless and unfeeling as you sound right now?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘You’re a monster. Why are you talking to me like this?’

‘Someone has to.’

‘What I do has got nothing whatsoever to do with you. I would be obliged if you would mind your own business.’

‘When I find a girl of your age in one of the most notorious opium dens in Hong Kong, I make it my business.’

‘It’s also a place where brothels and gambling dens thrive,’ she flared, ‘which leads me to question the purpose of your own visit to the native quarter, Lord Trevellyan.’

He raised one sleek, questioning brow. ‘And you know what a brothel is, do you, Miss Westwood?’

Her face turned scarlet with embarrassment and she found she couldn’t look at him. ‘Yes—at least—I think so.’

Max was shocked, for such things were never discussed with an innocent girl. ‘Damn it, there are some things a girl of your age shouldn’t know about.’

Marietta didn’t, not really. One day she had asked Oliver to explain what a brothel was, having overheard some young men making ribald remarks among themselves about such establishments. In a roundabout way Oliver had told her what a brothel was, firmly stating that, of course, he never visited them. She had always taken everything Oliver said as the gospel truth—but today had changed all that.

‘I can’t see why not. I’m seventeen, Lord Trevellyan, not six, and I cannot for the life of me understand why a man would want to visit such places if he is in love with his wife.’

‘Brothels are full of married men, Miss Westwood,’ he replied drily. ‘When you are older you will no doubt realise that. Why did you go there? What made you want to?’

She shrugged. ‘It was the adventure, I suppose, the excitement of doing something different.’

‘Something wrong, more like. Just what did you think you were playing at, doing something as lunatic as going to a place like that? Have you no brains at all?’

‘Don’t speak to me like that. I won’t listen.’ Her hands were trembling now, and her legs felt weak beneath her. I’m usually so strong, she thought. Why do I feel like a child? She knew why it was. She was in the wrong. In a fit of pique, Marietta threw her shoe at Lord Trevellyan, almost hitting him in the face, before turning on her heel and flouncing off.

‘Miss Westwood.’

Marietta paused and scowled back at him. She beheld a face of such dark, menacing rage that she shuddered. ‘What?’

‘That’s a nasty temper you have there. You could have taken my eye out.’

‘I’m only sorry I didn’t take your head off.’ On that note she left him and stalked away.

Max watched her disappear down the drive, her ridiculous fat plait bouncing against her back and her shins exposed like a couple of white sticks beneath her wide trouser bottoms and wearing only one shoe. Although he was accustomed to being assaulted, it was usually by someone of his own age and sex, not an angry young woman. Tiresome though Miss Westwood was, she didn’t lack personality, perhaps to be expected of Monty Westwood’s daughter. He was a man fond of breaking regulations, who believed his nefarious dealings in Hong Kong were a well-kept secret—it was hardly surprising that he had fathered such a little firebrand.

Marietta was full of self-recrimination. ‘Oh, my goodness,’ she whispered as she walked away in belated shame. The silent punishment she was heaping on herself for throwing a tantrum, as well as her shoe, at Lord Trevellyan was reinforced by her childish reply. It was all she could do not to turn back and explain that she had never intended to hurt him. Never had she felt so obnoxious or so miserable. How she hated herself for lapsing into the silly tempers she’d indulged in as a child.

After several moments of self-recrimination, she wondered how she could possibly atone for this calamity, for her father, always malleable in her hands and ready to forgive her any misdemeanour, would never forgive her for her actions today. Going to the native quarter disguised as a Chinese girl and visiting an opium den was bad enough, but she could imagine his righteous wrath when he found out she had physically assaulted Lord Trevellyan. What she had done could not be kept from him. Lord Trevellyan had said he would tell him and there was nothing she could do about that.

Instead of going into the house she went into the garden. Beneath the largest tree a circular bench had been constructed to fit around the trunk. This was where she sat looking down at the jumble of rooftops that tumbled down the hill to the harbour. Her unhappy reflections were disturbed when she heard someone approaching from behind. The next thing she knew, her lost shoe appeared on the bench beside her. It was him. For a split second she was tempted to flee, but checked herself. She would remain here and face him and admit her fault.

‘Well? What have you to say for yourself, Miss Westwood?’

Marietta realised he was waiting for her to apologise. Without turning to look at him she said, ‘If you must know, I’m not nearly so angry with you as I am with myself for what I did. I never meant to hit you. It was irresponsible and dangerous—and—and childish.’

‘I agree, it was. But thank you for apologising.’ Picking up her shoe, he sat beside her, admiring her honesty and candour and her ability to admit her mistakes.

His closeness brought to Marietta a warm waft of his cologne. It was a fresh, clean scent, but with a masculine undertone, a spicy blend of citrus and sandalwood.

His gaze slid over her, his expression neutral. ‘You look ridiculous, by the way.’

‘I know I do, but for obvious reasons I had to disguise myself. Are you really going to tell my father?’

‘I should. Have you any idea what might have happened to you today? Young Schofield should have known better than to take you there and he deserves to be horsewhipped for becoming intoxicated while he was supposed to be taking care of you.’

‘I made him take me,’ Marietta said in Oliver’s defence.

‘Then he should have known better than to agree.’

‘Please don’t tell my father,’ she whispered. ‘He—he isn’t well—in fact, of late I have seen a deterioration in his health. The last thing he needs is to worry about me.’

‘Then you should try harder to behave yourself.’

‘You’re right, but I seem to have a habit of always doing the wrong thing, no matter how hard I try not to.’

‘And your father will do anything to make his little girl happy and not give you the punishment you deserve.’

‘Please don’t say that,’ Marietta said quietly, unable to conceal the hurt his off-the-cuff remark caused her. ‘It’s isn’t like that. Since my mother’s death I’ve spent my life trying to fill the void in my father’s heart with the love her death took from him.’

‘Trying to be the antidote to his grief.’ Max regretted his remark about her when he saw how much it pained her.

She smiled wanly. ‘Something like that.’