It was very tempting, but . . . no. She’d been called a bastard often enough in her childhood to know bastardy was a dreadful thing to inflict on a child. If she were going to find out for herself what it felt like to lie with a man, it would have to be in wedlock.

But marriage to the duke? Despite the raw, ravening, uncontrollable desire that seized her whenever he touched her—oil to her flame—he was cold, cynical, autocratic and selfish.

She stared out into the night, watching the rain making ever-changing runnels down the window. Her mind and body were in turmoil.

Marriage? Giving up control of her money, placing her fate in the hands of a man—a man she didn’t like? She couldn’t do it. Not even to know what passion tasted like.

This rampant desire would fade—it was just a matter of waiting until the urgency passed.

Chapter Ten

Where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?

—JANE AUSTEN, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

Aunt Agatha’s carriage pulled up outside the duchess’s house promptly at three. George was a little surprised. She’d expected to be taken to Everingham House, but this house was altogether smaller—though by no means small—and prettier.

“The duke moved his mother here when he decided to get married,” Aunt Agatha said in a disparaging tone when George commented on it.

It would be a much more pleasant house to live in than grim old Everingham House, George thought, but she said nothing. She was absurdly nervous. She didn’t know the duchess—she had seen her, of course, at various events leading up to Rose’s wedding to the duke, but had never actually spoken to her, apart from “how do you do.”

It was bound to be awkward. Aunt Agatha rang the bell and the butler instantly opened the door.

“Her grace is expecting you. She is upstairs, in her bedchamber,” he intoned in a solemn voice.

In her bedchamber? George glanced at Aunt Agatha, who showed no surprise. They followed the butler up the stairs.

He knocked on the door, then opened it, saying softly, “Lady Salter and Lady Georgiana Rutherford, your grace.”

Bracing herself, George stepped into a dimly lit room. The curtains were drawn, candles were burning, and—she sniffed—was that incense? Or medicine? The atmosphere was suffocating.

The bedside table was crammed with jars and bottles and vials and strange-looking medical paraphernalia. A woman dressed in gray sat in the corner, silent and self-effacing. Some kind of attendant or nurse. She wasn’t introduced.

And there were flowers, so many flowers in vases all around the room.

Aunt Agatha had said the duchess was fragile and poorly, but clearly she was a lot sicker than that.

It looked like a deathbed.