Heiress in Love by Christina Brooke Page B

want, too.”
    Jane shook her head in denial, but she knew what Cecily said was true. The duke always succeeded in whatever he set out to accomplish. Oh, he wouldn’t force her into matrimony. He simply had a way of making it impossible for her to refuse.
    Cecily sighed. “Give her the speech, Rosamund.”
    “You may do it this time,” said Rosamund generously. “You’re better at it than I.”
    Cecily smoothed her sleeve. “Well, I fancy I’ve heard the speech more often than anyone, including Xavier. In fact, I know it better than Montford does. I had to set him straight on the wording last week.”
    “He’s losing his touch,” said Rosamund.
    “Mmm. Very sad.”
    Jane scowled. “I don’t need the speech. I know my duty. That’s why I’m in this mess.”
    Rosamund and Cecily looked at each other, then both intoned at once, “What do you think it means to be a Westruther, Lady Rox—”
    “No!” said Jane, half laughing, half incensed at the kind but misguided attempt to lighten the situation. “No speech!”
    She pressed finger and thumb to her temples. “You’re right. Of course, you’re right. I must marry him. It’s the only way I can keep Luke. Even if Constantine Black granted me custody, he could take Luke away any time he felt like it. That is simply not acceptable.”
    Rosamund regarded her anxiously. “Do you think the rogue will agree?”
    Jane shrugged a shoulder. “He’d be foolish to ignore the advantages to the match. After all, he needs my money, doesn’t he?”
    She thought of certain other things Constantine could require of her as his wife. Heat flashed through her body but her stomach churned with sick apprehension.
    He was so … so masculine, so intensely alive.
    She ought to be accustomed to an overabundance of male charisma. Her Westruther cousins possessed that kind of magnetism to a ridiculous degree, after all. Yet, on some primal level, Constantine Black alarmed and unsettled her more than anyone she’d ever met. Instinct warned her to set him at a distance, but that would not help her get Luke.
    She wiped her suddenly clammy hands on her skirts. “I’ll put the proposition to him logically. A marriage of convenience in which each party gets something they want. He’ll be a … a substitute Frederick, that’s all.”
    Rosamund looked doubtful. “Do you think you ought to be so frank about it, darling? Some gentlemen might take offense.”
    Better to offend him than give him the upper hand. She strongly suspected it wouldn’t take much encouragement for Constantine Black to press home his advantage.
    “I’ll try to be conciliating,” she said. “But I daresay it won’t be easy.”
    Ignoring her cousins’ skeptical looks, Jane marched over to her escritoire. Fumbling but determined, she opened her desk. Dawing out paper and ink, she sat down and picked up her pen.
    “I need to speak to Lord Roxdale before I face the duke in the morning. I shall arrange a parlay.”
    *   *   *
     
    Constantine eyed his empty glass, then glared at the dregs in the decanter beside him. He’d already called for another bottle, but who was he fooling? There wasn’t enough wine in England to make him sufficiently drunk to escape this appalling state of affairs.
    He’d quarreled with George, which he almost never did, and offended his aunt, too. Lady Endicott had retired to her bed with a fit of the vapors, so at least she wouldn’t trouble him for the next few hours.
    A rift with his aunt didn’t bother him. She’d made a career out of disapproving of him, after all. Besides, she’d undoubtedly make good her threat to bring the formidable Lady Arden down upon them, so he couldn’t feel too repentant about that.
    George was a different matter. He was the only one of their family who’d believed in Constantine, when the rest of society turned their backs. George had stood by him in open defiance of their father, who had forbidden all contact with the family’s black