The Inconvenient Duchess

should pack you off back to London.’
    And she realised that she’d gone too far. She’d failed her father. She’d failed Cici. She’d enraged the duke. And she had nowhere to go. The room spun around her.

    ‘Damn.’ He saw her begin to crumple and lunged to catch her before her body hit the floor. Who would have thought,after such an admirable rage, that she would turn out to be a fainter? Then he pulled her body close and knew the answer. The poor thing was skin and bones. She hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d claimed that she was cold and tired and hungry. She was merely stating the truth of the abysmal hospitality he’d shown her.
    He scooped a hand behind her knees and lifted her in his arms, surprised that, despite her height, she was so light a burden.
    She roused and struck feebly at his chest, murmuring, ‘Put me down.’
    ‘And let you fall to the ground in a heap? Certainly not.’ He negotiated the stairs and made his way towards their rooms.
    When she realised the direction, she struggled against him, but he held her tighter.
    ‘No. Please.’ And he felt the tremor rush through her body as they crossed the threshold to her room.
    He looked in amazement at the top of her head, trying to see down into the rat’s nest that this woman must call brains, and suspected he understood. ‘Madam, fear not. Necrophilia is not among my many vices. I do not mean to drag you unconscious to bed and force myself on your lifeless body.’ He dropped her down on to the bed, and she curled up in to a ball, hands screwed in to fists and pressed to her face.
    He looked down at her in the firelight, surprised at what he saw. She was amazingly thin, and the flames cast shadows in the deep hollows under her eyes and cheekbones. The nightrail was not the delicate trousseau he expected to find, but rough cotton, darned many times and a little too short for her.
    He pulled her hands away from her face and looked downat them, rubbing his thumbs gently along the palms. They were rough with calluses and showed fresh blisters and the healing cuts and scars of someone who knew what it meant to work for a living. He let go and she hid them, looking at him in horror, and waiting for his response.
    ‘I will send Polly to your room with some nourishment. In the future, do not be afraid to ask for what you want, whether it be an extra log for the fire or an extra meal. I go to my room now, and expect nothing of you but that you rest and gain strength before making any decisions. Goodnight, Miranda.’
    He closed the door softly behind him. What a strange bird she was. And willing to fly full into the teeth of a storm and beat her wings against it. He had a foul temper and a foul mouth, did he?
    He smiled, then sat at his desk. She had his measure after only a day. And the sight of her in a towering rage against him had been quite—he stirred in his chair—arousing. Not the delicate flower he’d been afraid to touch. Or the calculating seductress meaning to trap him. This one had fire in the blood and didn’t give a damn for him or his title. And if anger and passion were intertwined? Then perhaps it was time and more for this marriage.
    Of course, he’d need to undo some of the damage he’d done in the last day, if he hoped for her to come to him willingly. He needed to be cautious. It was thinking such as that that had led him into the disaster of his first marriage. With Bethany, it had been the sweet temper and dazzling looks that allowed her to wrap him so thoroughly in her web before sucking the hope out of him. This one could do it through sheer force of will, seducing him with passion, rendering him weak with a desire to please her.
    He needed to know where she came from, before dropping upon him unsuspecting. Why she was roughened from work. What wrong his mother had done to her.
    He thought for a moment and drew up a course of action, taking paper and pen from his writing desk.
    Dearest Miranda.
    He crumpled the paper and threw it into the fire. How should he start a letter to a wife who was a complete stranger to him?
    Miranda ,
    Somewhat cool, perhaps, but accurate.
    I think it best, after last night, that we proceed with caution on this journey set before us. Your perceptions are accurate. I would not have chosen you, had the situation not been forced upon me by honour, just as you would not have sought me out, based on my behaviour of the last two days.
    But that does not mean that our union is