Heartless Read Free

contradicted what he had told her no more than a few seconds earlier. “You need help; I need a wife. It sounds like a fair exchange to me.”
    Leandra’s eyes widened. The gentleman was very handsome in a non-fashionable way, very elegant…and very dark. Everything about him was dark. He wore a black cloak over a black jacket, a black shirt, and black buckskins with black topboots. Even his cravat was black. His gloves, tossed on the table beside his plate, were black leather. His black hair was worn long and tied back with a black velvet ribbon. His eyes were black and his skin was tanned dark. She wondered a trifle breathlessly if his handkerchief and smallclothes were black as well. He quirked a black brow at her even as she assessed his appearance.
    “Do I pass muster on a purely physical level?” he asked, voice tinged with sarcasm.
    “Do you have a black horse?” Leandra heard herself asking before she could stop herself.
    A sharp bark of laughter escaped him. “As a matter of fact, I have several black horses as well as a black cat and a black dog.”
    “Oh, my,” she murmured.
    Silence.
    “Are you going to marry me or not? I have no time to persuade you to change your mind,” he said as he tired of the novelty of baiting someone new. He was sick of the inn, sick of being stranded, and sick of her odd silence.
    She thought quickly. He could be one of those depraved lunatics that preyed on young defenseless women. Or he could be sincere in his need for a wife. Leandra wondered how many more times an opportunity like this would come her way. She stared into the gentleman’s eyes, looking for…something.
    And then she saw it. It flashed through his dark eyes and she actually saw it. He was human after all, she thought with satisfaction. She saw a glimmer of uncertainty in his gaze.
    “I have one question, sir,” she said determinedly. “You have not mentioned whether you need an heir.”
    Derringer gave her a benign look. “I will eventually. I see no reason to force you to do anything you find distasteful,” he added dryly.
    She blushed. “I did not mean to imply that I find you distasteful, sir,” she replied, thinking quite the opposite. “I merely wondered if you wanted a true marriage or one in name only. You do not know me after all and I would be very much surprised should you find me in the least attractive.”
    She met his gaze squarely and had not the least bit of self-pity on her round face. She appeared…accepting.
    “Truly?” was all Derringer drawled in reply to her self-deprecating comment. He could have told her that there was something about her that attracted him like a fly to honey. He remained silent on that score and allowed her to think what she would. “Are you accepting my proposal, then?”
    Leandra took a deep breath. “Yes.”
    Springs tapped on the door, not allowing the duke any time to actually be surprised at her relatively easy capitulation. He snapped distractedly at the landlord to enter.
    The slimy little man bowed low and said obsequiously, “The blacksmith is ‘ere, yer grace. Shall I send ‘im in?”
    “No, I will take him to my curricle myself in a moment. Leave.” The man was gone before the command had fully left Derringer’s mouth.
    “Your grace?” Leandra whispered. “Oh, dear God.”
    “Did I not mention I hold a dukedom?” he asked far too innocently.
    “No,” Leandra breathed, feeling just a trifle put out and more than a little unsure of herself. “I’m sure the fact just slipped your mind, your grace .”
    “Do not be a shrew,” Derringer remarked, his own nerves frayed to the breaking point from his hectic day. He stood to take his leave.
    She inhaled, the movement swelling her chest and drawing his grace’s eye to her not insignificant bosom. Ignoring his ungentlemanly reaction, she asked, “Which dukedom do you hold?”
    “Derringer.”
    He stared at her as if expecting some sort of reaction but all she could do was stare