Chapter 9

"Iam in the soup, Nicholas," the Duke of Dawford said glumly. "Well and truly in the soup."

He coughed slightly as he spoke, unaccustomed to the thick smoke in this particular club room at Boodles, mainly frequented by old buffers with cigars and pipes. They were only sitting in there to avoid the ribbing and teasing of younger men who had heard exaggerated and sometimes obscene accounts of his encounter with Miss Dorothy Hoskins.

"You are, indeed," Nicholas agreed and poured them both another measure of brandy from the decanter on the table between their comfortable leather chairs. "However you look at it, you have thoroughly compromised that girl, and the whole ton seems to know it. How unlucky that it was Miss Cooper of all people who spotted you!"

"I know. The only woman in London who would recognize both of us instantly and tell half the town by morning…"

"And in the middle of the street, Aaron!" Nicholas laughed ironically as he shook his head. "You were always the most sensible of all of us at school. It's hard to believe this story, even though you've admitted the truth of it with your own lips. It's something that our old classmate Lawson might have done or Wentworth Major, but never Dawford!"

"As Miss Cooper will tell you, it certainly happened. She has known me for ten years and has an encyclopedic knowledge of every young lady in London. She is adamant that she saw Miss Hoskins. In my arms."

Aaron took a deep breath at that thought, almost feeling the young woman back in his embrace, his heart racing in response to the feel of her body against his.

"So, there's no room for maneuver at all?" Nicholas asked, keen to help even though Aaron knew it was pointless. "No way to argue, for example, that you were merely assisting Miss Hoskins in removing dust from her eye with your handkerchief? Or that Miss Cooper perhaps needs spectacles in her advancing years?"

"If only too much peering at the affairs of other people damaged your eyesight! Miss Cooper would have been struck blind long before now. But no, there was no question of error. She saw Miss Dorothy Hoskins and I together last night. I cannot argue against that."

"Are you simply going to accept your fate, then? Marry the girl? Her family must be delighted."

Aaron shrugged, this being exactly what he knew must happen, although it brought him no joy. "One would imagine so. I haven't spoken to them yet. The brother's social and commercial ambitions would put the most dedicated member of the merchant class to shame. I must steel myself to endure his triumph at my capture before I call on them."

"Ah, Mr. Patrick Hoskins. Yes, I have heard of him. He's tried to inveigle the fellows here into an investment scheme or two already. Not a bad businessman, I hear."

"Focused, certainly, but too short-sighted," Aaron commented dismissively. "He's the kind of man who builds investment bubbles. I would advise you against taking his advice, unless you understand what you're doing."

"You would know best, of course," his friend offered diplomatically. "But it's obvious from your mood that this marriage isn't what you want. As you have not yet reached any legal agreement with the Hoskins family, could you not just slip off to the Continent and lie low until the affair dies down? You are a duke, after all. What could anyone actually do to you?"

"Honorably, no, I could not run away," Aaron said firmly, such a cowardly course of action not even considered. "Dorothy Hoskins would be completely ruined if I did not do my duty, Nicholas. While it wasn't quite the tale the rakes here would now have it, this was no peck on the cheek that the Cooper harridan saw."

"So, did you or did you not deflower the girl against a lamppost as the Viscount Travers was insinuating at the bar downstairs?" Nicholas asked jestingly.

"No," Aaron said crossly, his temper roused both by the idea that people could say such things about him and by Nicholas repeatedly referring to Miss Hoskins so casually as the girl. "Nor did I even seek out her company that night. She sought mine, very foolishly in the circumstances, actually chasing me out into the street. But I admit, I certainly kissed her."

"From what you say, it's beginning to sound like a deliberate set-up," Nicholas noted. "What young lady seeks out a gentleman alone in the street at night? Do I detect the hand of Patrick Hoskins in this arrangement?"

Now Aaron smiled bitterly but shook his head. "I'm sure he would love to get the credit for it, but no. Miss Hoskins sought me out for other reasons."

"Other reasons?" Nicholas scoffed. "What possible reasons could the girl have had for being alone with a man like that other than hoping to make him her husband?"

"Miss Hoskins," Aaron said pointedly, irritated again by Nicholas's manner of speaking, "wanted to tell me exactly what she thought of me, and it was far from complimentary. She was foolish, as I said, but she was innocent of the machinations you suspect. I dare say she will be happy enough to please her family by marrying me, but I cannot believe she deliberately precipitated the incident."

"Innocent? You mean she resisted when you kissed her?"

Resisted? Aaron felt again those small but determined hands pulling at his coat even while her soft warm lips sought his, the concerted dance of their tongues… If there had been any hint of resistance, he would have released a woman instantly. But Dorothy Hoskins had been the opposite of resistant—eager, hungry, demanding.

A man like Nicholas would never understand how such actions could be compatible with innocence, but Aaron knew they were. He had seen these very contradictions in Miss Hoskins' eyes that night, striking sparks in their collision and setting him alight too.

"I will not talk of such details, Nicholas," he answered, closing down a line of inquiry that was in danger of setting his blood afire once more. "After all, Miss Hoskins will soon be my wife and the Duchess of Dawford."

"Then let us drink to that, if we must, and it seems we must indeed," Nicholas answered, refilling their glasses once more from the decanter. "To the Duchess of Dawford."

Somberly, they both raised and clinked their glasses in a gesture more like a toast at a wake than the occasion of an impending engagement.

"To the Duchess of Dawford," Aaron repeated.

Dorothy had felt like a caged animal prowling the house and garden all day since her conversations with Patrick and then Annie. While neither her father nor her brother had said anything about remaining at home, knowledge of the rumors circulating outside was enough to make her recoil from the front door. She could not endure another scene like that in the park that morning…

The loud sound of the house bell made her jump up from the window seat in the front parlor, where both her novel and embroidery lay untouched beside her. Drawing back the lace curtain, she peered out and spotted an unmarked coach parked outside, likely a hire vehicle.

She heard footsteps hastening down the hallway towards Patrick's study. Once she was sure the coast was clear, she came out and caught Annie's eye as the maid was heading towards the servants' quarters.

"Who was that at the door?"

"Mr. Marshall, Miss," Annie replied briefly before she hurried away. "I must go. Mr. Hoskins has asked for tea."

Marshall, Pym and Boswell were the family's lawyers and far from the first visitors that afternoon. Patrick's agents, a clerk from his bank, and even the vicar from their local church had already called, their ringing or knocking grating on Dorothy's nerves each time. Patrick was evidently not waiting for the Duke of Dawford's arrival to get the Hoskins family affairs in order for a marriage.

Eventually, the Duke of Dawford himself must come, and she must navigate the difficult scenes that were bound to ensue.

Dorothy had racked her brains all day for some means of escaping this impossible situation but found herself stymied at every turn. Patrick had dismissed or ignored every objection to marrying the Duke she had raised so far.

In a novel, a young woman in her situation might run away from an unwanted marriage, but they always had a convenient aunt, a fortune or another suitor to rescue them. Dorothy had none of these things. Not yet one-and-twenty, she did not even have the small income willed to her from her mother's dowry.

No, running away was hopelessly impractical.

Her one faint hope lay in convincing the Duke of Dawford not to marry her. Patrick would have to listen to him, surely. Then, they could abandon this Season, retire to the country for a year, and hope that the ton would have forgotten Miss Dorothy Hoskins by next year. Patrick's ambition for her to marry a senior peer would have to be abandoned, she supposed.

Still, there would be other options including the sons of barons, similar in stature to their own family. Or second sons of higher-ranked families. Dorothy herself would be happy enough to marry a military or churchman if he were kind and cheerful, although she knew they would never be good enough for Patrick—and he would never forgive her for undermining his plans.

Even such semi-estrangement from her family was a price worth paying if it meant she was not shackled to the Duke of Dawford. Dorothy put her hands to her head as the memory of being in his arms came rushing back yet again. His lips so warm, his body so strong, her blood intoxicated by the very scent of his skin…

Dorothy wished she knew how to stop this overwhelming memory from returning. In fact, she wished to uproot every trace of him from her mind and run to the ends of the earth to escape seeing him ever again. But she also sensed that this would be impossible while remembrance of his embrace was so strangely compelling.

"I hate him!" she said aloud to the empty room, trying to focus solely on the Duke's rudeness and arrogance, his contempt for her family, and his antisocial behavior.

However hard she tried, she could not shake off the intensity of those blue eyes gazing into hers…