She stared at him in disbelief. To speak so about his dying mother. She was deeply shocked. “You really are heartless, aren’t you?”

He shrugged. “Hence the sobriquet the ton has bestowed on me.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know how you can even think of leaving your mother in her condition.”

There was a short silence. “What condition would that be?”

George couldn’t believe her ears. “Surely you know. She’s dying.”

He gave her a sharp look. “What makes you think so?”

“I saw her just the other day. She looked terrible. I got the impression she had just days to live.”

His eyes narrowed. His hands tightened on the reins. “You met my mother? How? Where?”

“At her home, of course. Aunt Agatha took me to see her. She’s clearly not fit even to leave her bed.”

His face hardened; his eyes blazed cold and fierce. He said in a clipped voice, “So, you visited her, and talked with her. Can I assume it was the day you changed your mind and decided to marry me after all? The day before I came to arrange the settlements?”

“Yes, but— What are you— Watch out!”

Pedestrians scattered as the duke pulled his horses around in a circle and drove rapidly back the way they’d come. George clung to the side of the curricle. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

“Taking you to see my mother.”

“Now? But why?”

He didn’t answer. With a grim expression he wove swiftly through the London traffic. George would have admired his skill with the reins had she not been so bemused by his overreaction to the idea that she’d met his mother. What was so bad about that?

It was only natural that a mother would want to meet her son’s intended.

Or did he not know of his mother’s grave illness? Had she broken a confidence? Nobody had mentioned it was to be kept from him.

“Hold ’em,” he instructed his groom as they pulled up in front of the duchess’s house. The lad jumped down and ran to hold the horses. The duke swung George down, took her hand in a firm grasp and towed her up the steps to the front door.

“What are you doing?” She pulled to release her hand but his grip only tightened.

He yanked hard on the bellpull and a bell jangled loudly inside the house.

The butler opened the door. “Your grace, I—”

“Upstairs, is she?”

“Yes, your grace, in her dressing r—”

The duke pushed past him and, keeping George’s hand firmly in his grasp, took to the stairs. She tried to pull back. “What are we doing here? You can’t go into her dressing room unannounced!” But he kept going and as he didn’t release her, she had no option but to go with him.