I Proposed to London's Wickedest Duke, and He Said Yes novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Terrace
Her uncle announces her engagement to a sixty-one-year-old buyer in front of the ballroom, so Mina walks onto the terrace and proposes to the wickedest duke in London; he takes her glove off button by button, says yes, and asks her uncle for her hand before the room. Her uncle must consent, and whispers that her sister Kitty goes to Leeds instead.
My uncle announced my engagement between the second and third dances, and he did not ask me first.
He stood on the dais at Lady Hartleigh's ball with a glass raised and his silver whiskers shining.
"My niece Wilhelmina," said the Earl of Brayne, "has consented to become the wife of a gentleman of Leeds."
He said the gentleman's name.
I stopped hearing anything after it.
The gentleman was sixty-one, and he stood beside my uncle in a tight blue coat, smiling at me.
Two hundred people applauded.
On Tuesday I had said no.
My uncle had patted my hand and told me that my sister Kitty, who was seventeen, would suit the gentleman's son just as well.
Kitty was at home in curl papers, because she was not yet out.
I was twenty-four, and my uncle held my mother's money in trust until I turned twenty-five.
That was the first of September, and I had a dreadful suspicion that he had already spent it.
I smiled at the room, because nothing else was possible.
Then I walked out through the long window onto the terrace.
At the far end, on the stone balustrade, sat the Duke of Tarrant.
His boots hung over the garden.
Everyone in London knew him, and no mother in London would let him near her daughter.
He was said to have ruined Lord Fane's wife nine years ago in a way that required a divorce and ten thousand pounds.
He wore a saffron waistcoat, a great many rings, and an expression of enormous boredom.
"I'm hiding," he said, without turning round.
"Then you won't mind company."
"I mind it very much. I'm a dreadful host to people I'm hiding from."
"Your Grace, I wish to marry you."
He turned.
He had flaxen hair to his collar and blue eyes.
His mouth looked made for saying clever things in bed.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I'll say it slower. I am Wilhelmina Aldridge. I need a husband by Thursday."
"Thursday is rather soon."
"My uncle has just sold me to a man from Leeds. I would prefer to sell myself to you."
He slid down off the balustrade and stood in front of me, a little taller than I was, which almost never happens.
"Why me?" he said.
"Because you're wicked."
"Ah."
"My uncle cannot refuse a duke without admitting he's afraid of one.
"I don't want love.
"I want a husband who is busy elsewhere, and a roof for my sister.
"Those are my terms. Kitty comes with me.
"You never forbid me anything or ask where I go.
"My money stays in my own name."
He was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, "May I see your hand?"
"Why?"
"I would like to know whether you mean it."
I held out my left hand.
He took it in both of his and turned it over.
Then he began to undo my glove, one small pearl button at a time.
He went as slowly as though each one was a question.
I felt every one of them in my knees.
He rolled the kid leather down over my palm and my fingers.
Then he laid his thumb on the inside of my wrist, where the pulse is.
"Steady," he said softly.
"You're either lying or very brave."
"I'm very angry."
"That's what I meant."
He lifted my wrist and put his mouth against the pulse, and held it there.
The heat ran straight up my arm and down my spine and settled somewhere I would not have admitted to in a church.
"Yes," said the Duke of Tarrant.
"My name is Gervase Lisle, since we are to be married."
"Mina," I said, "to anyone who has held my wrist."
"I accept your terms," he said, "and I add one of my own.
"You never lie to me in my house."
"I've never lied in my life," I said. "It's tiresome."
He laughed, a real laugh, startled out of him.
"It is the nicest thing anyone has said to me in nine years," he said, "that I'm wicked.
"Come. We'll do this properly."
He put my bare hand on his sleeve and walked me back through the window and into the light.
The music was still going, but the room had turned.
My uncle stood on the dais with his glass halfway to his mouth.
The Duke of Tarrant crossed the whole floor with me on his arm.
"Lord Brayne," he said, pleasantly, loud enough for the back of the room.
"I find I must beg your niece's hand.
"I am told you have just given it away, and I trust you will wish to withdraw."
Two hundred people stopped breathing.
I watched my uncle do the sum.
A man cannot refuse a duke before the whole of society without telling society why.
"The honour," said my uncle, "is entirely ours."
His smile was perfect.
The gentleman of Leeds sat down on a gilt chair.
My uncle came down off the dais and kissed my cheek, and spoke into my ear.
"You've bought a week, my girl.
"Kitty goes to Leeds on Thursday instead.
"And your duke will tire of you by Wednesday."
I did not move.
I felt the Duke's arm go still under my hand, and I knew he had heard.
When my uncle had gone, the Duke reached inside his coat and took out a folded paper.
The ink had gone brown with age and the seal was cracked from being carried.
"A special license," he said.
"I bought it the week I became a duke. I was twenty-two.
"The line for the names is empty."
"Why?"
"I was waiting for someone to ask," said the Duke.
It was the most practiced line I had ever heard, and I almost believed it.
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