Chapter 10

The air was filled with the spicy aroma of cooking as Marie stepped through the front doors of her home. The living room was warm and cozy with an enticing fire crackling behind the grate. The welcoming atmosphere reminded her of home when her parents were still alive.

The shack had been small and cramped with a few leaks and cracks, but at least they had lived in love. A warm meal had been placed on the table every day when she'd arrived home. Her mother had worked as a maid for one of the upper-class houses, and her father had been a footman. The house hadn't been as cozy as the one she had purchased after their passing, but it had been a home.

"Is that you, Marie?" Elaine called from the kitchen, popping her head around the corner.

Marie smiled at the blob of flour on her grandmother's nose as she kneaded a ball of dough in her old, wooden, mixing bowl. "I'll be right there," she said with a heavy sigh and hung her coat beside the door.

"What happened dear? You look as if you've heard that the world is coming to an end." Elaine came into the living room with the bowl in her hands, a worried frown furrowing her brow.

The woman was worse than a bloodhound when it came to sniffing out a problem. Marie had tried to hide her feelings from her in the past, but it never worked.

"Just a trying day with some of the matches." She secretly included herself in the mix after poring over the list of eligible men in London. Not a single one had seemed like a good prospect for her.

"I suggest you come and have a seat in that case; we can talk about it and come up with a solution together." Elaine smiled at her and disappeared around the door once again.

She could always count on her grandmother to make things seem much easier and lighter than they actually were. She gave herself over to the situation at hand, taking a seat at the kitchen table before giving her cup of tea of tentative sniff. Marie lived by the rule of thumb that if someone fooled her twice, she was actually fooling herself.

Elaine let out a hearty chuckle that seemed to rattle her hands as she worked the dough. "I didn't put anything in there this time although I do think you should be preparing for the future."

Marie placed the cup back on the table and began to sob as her shoulders shook. The day had been hard enough without anyone pointing out that her future and those of the ones she loved were in danger.

"Oh dear, did I say something wrong?" Elaine quickly placed the bowl back on the table and came to her granddaughter's side, placing her arms around her shoulders.

"It wasn't you; I just don't know what to do anymore. Everything was going so well, and now, it's all messed up. I might lose the shop, and a handsome duke keeps proposing to me!" She began to cry even louder as the flood she had been trying to keep at bay overflowed.

"I beg your pardon?" Elaine took a step back and cocked her head to the side, gawking at Marie with her head tilted to the side.

The sobs raked through her body now as her shoulders moved up and down.

Elaine took a deep breath and shook her head, pulling out a chair in front of Marie and taking a seat. "Now, you had better stop crying like that because both of us are far too old to deal with things in this manner. You made two very shocking admissions, one of which I am very interested to hear more about. Are you going to settle down and stop crying, or should I fetch the smelling salts?"

Marie caught her breath and took a sip of tea before wiping her cheeks. "There was an incident at the ball the other night." She continued to explain the situation to her grandmother and relate everything that had transpired up until the point where Dominic had appeared. She didn't want to venture too heavily onto that path when she had uttered the confession by accident.

Elaine narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. "That good for nothing James McFunnugh had never been an honest man. I ought to send him a tonic that will turn his skin green for a week! Or perhaps I should give him something that will clean his bowels out and keep him in the privy for a few days; that will teach him!"

"I don't think we should be seeking revenge, Grandmamma. It won't solve anything, and it may just make matters worse for me. He's already in a bad mood because of my rejection at the ball." She placed her hand on her grandmother's arm and held her back for a moment.

"You're a kinder person than I am; I would have slipped him something long ago. Now, what were you saying about a duke that keeps proposing to you? Have all the men in London suddenly gone mad? I will wallop every single one of them if they don't stop forcing themselves upon you!" Elaine lifted her right hand and made a shaky fist despite her knobbly knuckles that looked rather painful.

"Dominic Harding never forced himself on me; in fact, he was the one who stopped James and threatened him if he ever laid a hand on me again. He proposed to me after I said I needed to marry someone who could protect me from James." She reluctantly told her grandmother the truth when she realized that there was no way out of her predicament now.

Elaine opened and shut her mouth with a confused look. "Is he the same duke that you've been struggling to find a match for? The Duke of Wiltshire?"

"The one and only." Marie nodded.

Her grandmother repeated the same gasping motion with her mouth. "The Duke who has refused every single eligible woman of the ton, even the wealthiest and most sought after?"

Marie nodded again, making a face when she realized where her grandmother was headed.

"The same Duke of Wiltshire who argues with you every chance that he gets?" Elaine raised her eyebrows now as if she were impressed.

"Yes, Grandmamma, the one whose grandmother wrote to me with all his details. The one who argued with me at the Stone residence before a dinner. When I made the match between Violet Smith and Greyson Stone last year, I had already begun to look for the Duke's future wife. He's been a thorn in my side ever since!" she grumbled and slumped back in her chair.

Elaine tilted her head back and laughed from the pit of her stomach as she slapped the table.

"This is hardly anything to laugh about." Marie shook her head and sighed heavily again. She hadn't wanted to tell her grandmother about the Duke because she just knew she would run wild with the situation.

"I'm sorry dear, I didn't mean to laugh like that, but this is just too perfect. The fool was falling in love with you while trying to fight off the many matches that you thrust under his nose. This is a perfect example of keeping your friends close but your enemies closer, eh?" Elaine chuckled again.

Marie's heart skipped a beat at her grandmother's casual use of the word love.

Love.

It was impossible for the Duke to be in love with her. They fought like cats and dogs every time they got the chance. They never saw eye to eye on anything, and she couldn't possibly think of another man who made her blood boil with irritation in the way that the Duke did.

Opposites attract.

She thought of Sophia Atwood's reminder that she had told all of them to give love a fighting chance, even when it seemed as if the other person had nothing in common with them.

"You know, I knew that making that vanilla water you love so much extra strong would do the trick. It must have lured him in just as I intended. I'll admit that I hadn't been aiming for a duke, more like a simple doctor or even a farmer. I need to be careful how much vanilla I use next time. Next thing you know, we will have the King ending his marriage to come after you," Elaine began to mutter to herself in the same manner that Marie had done on the balcony.

"Grandmamma, that isn't the point. The vanilla water doesn't have any magical properties of attraction."

Images of the Duke sniffing her neck and ears flashed across her mind. He had mentioned to her during their steamy moment that he enjoyed the way she smelled. That's really not the point, she shook her head again.

Elaine held her hands up in surrender and stood. "You can argue, but you said it yourself; the Duke keeps proposing to you."

Tiredness took over her body as she realized that arguing wouldn't do her any good. She had bigger fish to fry. Trying to convince her grandmother that she didn't possess the ability to create magic, duke-attracting juice was low on her list of priorities.

"So, when is the wedding?" Elaine asked bluntly with her hands on her hips.

Marie choked on her tea, sending drops splattering across the table.

"We will need to work on your table etiquette. That kind of behavior won't do at all when you're a duchess." She narrowed her eyes at her granddaughter.

"There won't be a wedding because I am not becoming a duchess. I have denied the Duke's proposals, and I shall continue to do so." She gently patted her chest as her breath burned her lungs.

"I never took you for a fool, Marie, but I can see now that while you inherited your mother's looks, you inherited your father's stubbornness. He never could admit when he was wrong," Elaine tutted disappointedly.

"I am going to bed, Grandmamma. I know for a fact that marrying the Duke would be a very bad idea. We have nothing in common, and the man knows nothing of being chivalrous." She placed her hands on the table and stood.

Elaine examined her carefully and tilted her head to the side. "You say he knows nothing of being chivalrous, yet he offered to marry you when you needed him most. You have no title to your name, your family is not of nobility, and there isn't even a hint of a dowry. He sounds very chivalrous to me, but what do I know? I'm just a crazy old lady who spends her days making vanilla water for good fortune." Elaine threw her hands up in the air dramatically and turned her back.

He does sound chivalrous.

Marie took a deep breath and made her way to her room. She was tired, more tired than she had ever been before. The situation seemed dire with no options to solve her problems.

Perhaps I should marry the Duke.

The thought caught her off guard as she stumbled into her room, undoing the laces of her boots before she even reached her dressing table.

The man was insufferable, yet she couldn't get him out of her mind. Her breath caught in her throat when she thought of their steamy encounter in her shop. Her body had responded so deliciously to him that she was sorry they hadn't finished.

No.

She lifted her head high and gazed at herself in the mirror. There was absolutely no way that she could marry the Duke. She would search for any other solution rather than give herself over to him.

Why are you so afraid of marrying him?

Her heartbeat slowed as she pondered the question. There was so much that she needed to think about that unraveling her feelings seemed like a monstrous task that she didn't have the strength to face.

"Janey?" She looked past her own reflection and noted her maid, who was trying to sneak past her without being seen.

"I didn't realize you would be up this late, miss." Janey stopped, almost guiltily, and hesitated in the doorway.

"Where have you been all this time?" Marie noted the bags under the girl"s eyes and the worried look on her face. Her usually free demeanor was replaced by one of stark concern.

"I was doing some work, miss; I'm sorry if I disturbed you." She seemed to get over her hesitation and crossed the threshold into the room.

Marie found her sudden change in behavior to be strange but summed it up to all the stress that was being placed on them both because of the landlord's threats. "I know you work incredibly hard for the shop and I appreciate that, but you mustn't wear yourself out. I'm not sure what I would do without you." She offered the girl a kind smile, thinking of all the times that Janey had offered to help out at a ball or orchestrated a chance meeting on her behalf.

The girl had been there from the start, and none of it would have been possible if she hadn't used her ability to blend in so well.

"Yes, miss, I do work very hard." Her face seemed to sink a little further as she glanced past Marie to the open window.

"Please don't let any of this business get you down; I am trying my best to remedy the situation with the landlord. He's a cruel man with little to no heart as far as I can see. It's hard to believe that he's been allowing us to rent all these years without showing his true intentions."

Janey seemed to lift her head high now as a spark lit in her eyes. "Yes, miss, we never can tell who we can trust. You can see a person more often than not and still be surprised by what their true intentions are." A veiled expression fell over her face as she seemed far more determined than she had been before.

"Well, in any case, I think we should get a good night's sleep; we can tackle all of these problems tomorrow." She turned back to her mirror and began to remove the pins from her hair.

Janey turned to leave but halted just for a second as she turned back to look at Marie.

"Was there something else that you wanted to say?" Marie paused for a moment and met the young girl's gaze.

Shaking her head, Janey allowed the corners of her mouth to curve into a faint smile. "Nothing, miss. I just wanted to wish you a good night."

"Thank you, Janey. I hope that you get a good night's rest as well." Marie felt her heart warming again as the girl left her room. She was glad that Janey and her grandmother were there to stand with her. Both women proved to be an invaluable source of strength and help for her. She wasn't sure why she had considered letting Janey go, even for a second.