brow with the back of his arm, sucking in a deep breath as he tried to push away the remnants of that blood-lust. It still pounded in his veins, a loud rush in his ears.
“Thank you, Mr Watson,” he said. “The exercise was just what I needed today.”
“Your form was a bit off, if I may say so, your Grace,” Mr Watson said, stripping off his heavy leather gloves. Watson was the fencing master at Gerard’s Saloon for Gentlemen, and had been tutoring Nicholas in the art of swordsmanship for many months.
The Saloon was a great retreat from his ducal duties and the demands of society. It was a place where Nicholas could box or fence, could feel the raw physical life in his muscles and forget everything else. The rest of the world could be left at the doorstep.
Usually. Today, the world insisted on following him inside and riding on his shoulder as he fought. He was betrothed. To Lady Emily Carroll.
Every time he swung the sword he remembered that fact. He saw her pale, stricken face in his mind, felt her cold hand in his as she stood beside him and faced all those deluded well-wishers at the ball. She had said scarcely anything for the rest of the ghastly evening, and she never looked him in the eye.
Was that only last night? It felt like a century ago. That ball, so full of happy smiles and congratulations from everyone but the prospective bride, seemed to last a decade in itself.
He and Emily would not have chosen each other in a perfect world. She would certainly never have chosen him, as her frozen, statue-like demeanor last night showed all too clearly. And he, despite the strange way he seemed drawn to her despite his better judgement and prudence, would never have married at all. The title of Duchess of Manning seemed cursed after the fates of his mother and stepmother.
This was not a promising start to their match. If there was any way to honorably cry off he would certainly do it. But there was not, and he was not his father. He would do the honorable thing, whether he—or Emily—liked it or not.
Even if it killed him.
He stood up straight, balancing the hilt of the sword on his palm. “Shall we go another round, Mr Watson?”
Watson laughed. “I fear not, your Grace. You have quite exhausted me today, and I would recommend you not exhaust yourself. I understand you have a wedding to plan.”
“How do you know that?” Nicholas said. He cursed soundly at the speed gossip spread, even to the Saloon. There was no escaping it anywhere.
“I think everyone knows, your Grace. They do say the lady is enormously beautiful.”
“Yes.” Nicholas thought of Emily’s pale, heart-shaped face, her bright green eyes, her slender figure. So beautiful, and so fragile. “She is.”
“May I offer my congratulations, your Grace? Everyone here at the Saloon wishes you great happiness.”
Great happiness? Nicholas almost laughed aloud. They all might as well wish he could go to the moon. Married happiness in his family, it seemed, had already been taken up by his sisters.
“Thank you, Mr Watson,” he said.
“Nick!” Stephen called.
Nicholas glanced over to see his brother at the edge of the room, just beyond the other practising fencers. He tossed his blade to Watson and hurried over to Stephen.
“You were fierce out there today,” Stephen said. “I thought you were going to skewer poor Watson. Angry about something, perhaps?”
“Never mind about me,” Nicholas said impatiently. “Did you get it?”
“Yes, and in record time, too. Being a duke, or bearing a duke’s letter, certainly has its advantages.” Stephen reached inside his coat and drew out a folded and sealed document.
A special licence. Now he and Emily could be married wherever and whenever they chose. And if word of their betrothal had spread even to the Saloon and its environs, the wedding would have to be soon.
“I fetched this as well, as you asked,” Stephen said. He held out a small jewellery box. “I’m not sure it’s a very good idea to use it, though. Seems very bad luck indeed.”
Nicholas opened the box and stared down at the ring it held, a twist of gold studded with small diamonds like raindrops on a branch. His mother’s ring. It had been his grandmother’s before that, and his great-grandmother’s, Manning brides for generations.
It had seemed a fine gesture of continuity, but now that he saw it he was sure Stephen’s superstitions were quite right for once. He could only picture it on his mother’s finger. She had worn it long after her marriage disintegrated, a symbol of a spectacularly failed match.
He didn’t want to see it on Emily’s hand. They had enough against them already with the cursed title of Duchess.
He snapped the box shut. “You’re right, Stephen. A new ring would suit her better. Maybe an emerald.”
“You know, Nick,” Stephen said slowly, as if he was reluctant to say it but felt he should, “you do not have to do this.”
“Of course I have to. You were there, you saw what happened. I will not be another in the long line of Manning cads.”
“You are not like that!” Stephen protested. “But remember how it was with our parents, how unhappy they were. And how that unhappiness infected their children, too.”
Children. Nicholas shook his head hard, trying to dislodge the sudden, hideous image of Emily white and still, a dead infant in her arms. No. That would not happen again. He would not hurt another woman like that again, he would find a way to stop it.
“It won’t be that way for Lady Emily and me,” he said. “We can live contentedly together after a time, I’m sure. Besides, I’m the duke. You and our sisters have been telling me I need to marry, to find a duchess. Why not her? She is quite suitable.”
“Suitable!” Stephen burst out. “Nick, she is pretty, of course, and of good family. But she is so—so cold. How can you find contentment with someone they call the Ice Princess?”
Nicholas laughed. Emily was certainly not cold. Sometimes she burned like the hottest summer day, until she remembered herself and drew away again. “Things are not always as they appear, Brother. I will marry Lady Emily, because I must, and I will find a way to make the best of it for us both. You and the others have to welcome her into our family.”
Stephen scowled, but at last he nodded. “I will do my best, for you. And Justine always cares for everyone. I’m not sure about Annalise or Charlotte, though.”
Nicholas’s youngest sisters did have minds, and iron wills, of their own. But they always did what was best for the family in the end. “Once they come to know Emily, all will be well.”
“I hope you are right,” Stephen said doubtfully.
“Of course I am. Dukes are always right,” Nicholas said with confidence. Inside, though, he was simply not so sure. Emily was a strange lady, impossible to read or decipher. One minute he was sure he understood her at last, and then she went and did something utterly unpredictable.
“Let’s go,” he said. “It seems I must shop for a new ring.”
“I think you should go home and bathe first, Nick,” Stephen said. “You smell like a dockside tavern after all the sweat you’ve shed today.”
Ah, yes—that was what families were really for. Keeping things honest in a painfully polite world.
“Fine,” he said. “Home first, then the shops. Then I must call on my bride.”
They soon left the Saloon, Nicholas moderately tidied up, and set off for Manning House. The carriage had been left at home that day, so they were on foot. After the fifth person stopped them to wish him happy, though, he thought better of that decision.
“Shall