The Inconvenient Duchess

you?’ Her voice was not as steady as she had hoped.
    ‘I don’t mean to, no. But I could. For now at least, make yourself comfortable. Now remove some stationery from the desk and write what I tell you to write. Then we are going on a little trip. If all goes according to plan, you will be released unhurt.’
    ‘When?’ she demanded.
    ‘A few days. A week perhaps. As long as it takes for your husband to realise that you are gone. And to realise who you are with and what you’ve been doing.’
    ‘What I’ve been doing? If this is some crude attempt at seduction… Kidnapping and rape?’ She managed a frail laugh. ‘Really, St John, you might as well leave now. Or prepare touse that gun you’re holding—I’ll die before I let you touch me.’
    ‘Let me?’ His laugh was hearty and confident. ‘You have a very lopsided view of the circumstances as they present themselves, my dear. I’ll shoot you if you try to escape, of course. And as for the rest? If I choose to have you, the gun will hardly be necessary. I outweigh you by several stone and am perfectly capable of forcing you to do what I want.’ His eyes travelled over her body. ‘Of course, it would be much more pleasant for both of us if you came to me willingly, as my brother’s first wife did.’
    She stared at him in disgust. ‘I don’t care what is in the past. If you think I plan to repeat the infidelities of my husband’s first duchess…’
    He waved a dismissive hand. ‘It is unnecessary for you to decide anything at this point. I would not dismiss the possibility out of hand. I know my brother better than you. You may not care what is in the past, but it is very much alive to him. The knowledge that you spent a week alone in my company, whether willing or unwilling, should be sufficient to accomplish my ends.’
    ‘And just what are your ends, St John?’
    ‘To ruin, once and for all, any happiness that my brother might have on this earth. To make him wonder for the rest of his life whether his first child looks a little too much like me. To destroy his trust in you, now that it is too late to cast you off.’ He stared at her. ‘It is too late, isn’t it? You are not the unknowing girl I met a few short weeks ago, but his wife for good and earnest. And my brother has no doubt formed an attachment to you. Marcus is too soft-hearted by far when it comes to women. That was what made it so easy for Bethany to come to me, once they were married. He trustedher, despite evidence to the contrary. At first he did not want to believe, and, when his face was rubbed in the truth, things had progressed too far for him to see a way out. His precious honour would not allow him to divest himself of a wife that loved another. Let us see how he handles the thing this time.’
    ‘But it is not the same, St John,’ she protested. ‘I do not love you. I loathe you. And Marcus knows this.’
    ‘But that was not always true, was it, Miranda?’ There was a trace of hope in his voice. ‘I remember the look in your eyes those first weeks. You did not loathe me then. And if Marcus had not returned when he had, you’d have been mine. Can you look in my eyes and lie to me? Tell me that it is not true.’
    She stared straight into his eyes and through him. ‘St John, you are beautiful to look at. And charming. Perhaps I could have loved the man I thought you were, when you were kind to me. But that was all a lie. Every word you said to me.’
    ‘Not every word, perhaps,’ he murmured.
    Her temper flared. ‘You have the nerve to come to my room, talking sweet words, but with a pistol in your hand. Your present actions prove to me that the sweet, funny man I knew is not the real you at all. There is something twisted in you, St John. Something ugly and broken. And it repels me.’
    The smile twisted on his face as her words hit home. ‘Fortunately for me, your approval of my character is not required.’ He waved the pistol at a blank paper on the desk. ‘You are going to write a letter to your husband, now, explaining our elopement.’
    ‘I most certainly will not.’
    ‘You can write it in ink or I will write it in blood on thewalls.’ His voice was cold and angry and the hand holding the pistol was rock steady.
    ‘Marcus will never believe that I went with you willingly.’ Her voice was losing its bluster.
    ‘It will not matter whether you come willingly or are dragged out of this room by your hair. When you return to him, Marcus will