Claiming the Courtesan Read Free Page A

never be less than breathtaking.”
    “Thank you,” she said, although his remark hadn’t entirely sounded like a compliment.
    “You will make a most spectacular duchess.”
    If she hadn’t known better, she would have guessed he’dspent the day in his cups. Her fear had subsided enough for her to find Kylemore’s odd humor irritating.
    “It is Your Grace’s pleasure to joke, I see.”
    Kylemore’s eyes glittered with a hard light. “I am far from joking, madam.” His deep voice took on its customary tone of command. “I am here to inform you we will marry as soon as I have obtained a special license.”
    Shock forced a genuine laugh from her. “Now I know you really are mocking me.” She stood, meaning to serve him a glass of wine, but he reached out and caught her wrist, forestalling her.
    “This is a strange answer to my proposal.”
    “I haven’t heard a proposal,” she said before she could stop herself.
    “I want you to be my wife.”
    She stared down into his face, noticing the muscle that jerked in his cheek. Strong emotion gripped him, she realized. Not only that; he was, it appeared, serious about this crackbrained idea.
    “Your Grace, flattered as I am by your interest, you must see what you suggest is impossible.” When his jaw took on a stubborn line, she continued in a harder voice. “Even if the world, your name and your family countenanced such a mésalliance, I am afraid my own pride would deny you.”
    “Pride?” He spoke as if the word were inconceivable in connection with a fallen creature such as herself. “This is a preferment beyond your wildest dreams.”
    “My dreams are surprisingly humble.”
    Beneath a growing sense of unreality, Verity was angry. Only an overbearing bully could expect her to be grateful for this lunatic offer. She was canny enough to see that he was hatching some scheme, although she couldn’t fathom his purpose.
    A more conceited woman would ascribe the duke’s offerto a sudden surfeit of passion. But Verity knew better. He was plotting something to his own advantage. And she had no intention of becoming entangled in whatever he was up to.
    Her, a duchess? The idea was comical in its unreality.
    She kept her voice cool. “Pray release me. Your tender wooing is likely to leave a bracelet of bruises.” Not precisely true. His hold was firm without actually hurting her.
    “I’ll let you go when you answer me.”
    “I thought I had.” Necessity meant she’d devoted most of her life to catering to self-centered men. Now she’d reached her limit. “But as Your Grace insists, here is my reply. I have submitted to becoming your mistress, my lord. No power on earth could compel me to become your wife.”
    Perhaps if he’d phrased his ridiculous suggestion less arrogantly, she might have tempered her refusal. Or perhaps with escape so close, she couldn’t contain her natural frankness, hidden so long in the pretense of being Soraya.
    Furious color bloomed along his cheekbones. “You respond hastily, madam, and with a disdain I cannot believe I deserve. I have come to lift you from the gutter into an honorable state of matrimony.”
    “At least I am free in the gutter.”
    He surged to his feet and glared down at her. Even their most extreme moments of passion had never held so much genuine emotion. “You speak very lightly of gutters. You forget I could destroy you with a word.”
    The duke loomed over her, tall, powerful, his lean muscled body radiating strength. But Verity refused to cower before him. Verity, not Soraya. Somewhere in this encounter, Soraya had vanished forever.
    “Very pretty, sir. I almost find myself charmed into accepting your suit.”
    Verity thought he might strike her, he who had never lifted a hand in anger to her before. She braced herself. She’d endured violence in the past. She could endure it again.
    But unbelievably, he mastered his rage. He unclasped her arm with an ironic gesture. “There is no purpose