Damn, he was an idiot.

He might have impressed her with his dancing, but in the end, she’d agreed to marry someone with a title, handpicked by her father. Regardless of how well she felt in his arms or how well he felt in hers now, he needed to remind himself of that. She was a tool, nothing more.

Their agreement was only fake, after all.

Rhystan ended the dance abruptly, ignoring the flash of hurt surprise on her face as he deposited her where he’d found her and swept his mother’s favorite into the next set.

Distance was best.

Sixteen

“Tell me the truth, Embry, she’s the girl, isn’t she?” the dowager duchess demanded.

Rooted in her tracks en route to the morning room where she was to meet Ravenna, Sarani felt her skin go hot and then icy cold. Her Grace’s voice was hard and insistent, drifting from the open door of the study. Sarani wanted to cover her ears and flee. She abhorred eavesdropping, but her stubborn feet refused to move.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she heard Rhystan say, his voice laced with irritation. “What girl?”

“The one from Joor,” came the acidic reply. “Lisbeth’s colored daughter.”

Sarani flinched, though she was more than familiar with such a descriptor. She’d heard them all at some point or another. More importantly, though, the duchess knew. Or suspected, rather. After all, one did not show up with a female of unknown origins on one’s ship returning from India and declare that one was to be married to said female. Especially when one was a duke.

“You are mistaken.” Rhystan’s voice was hard.

“I am not. Do you know what this will do to our family? The scandal it will cause? How could you bring her to London? Bring her here as your bride?”

Sarani’s heart clenched, the familiar bitterness wrapping its barbed fingers around her. She’d known the duchess could be brutal, given that Sarani was ruining her grand plans, but that didn’t make it any easier to hear the obnoxious sentiments.

“Rhystan, be reasonable,” the duchess went on. “You are a duke. She is not suitable.”

“Enough!” And then more softly. “Enough, Mother.”

They did not speak for a long moment, and Sarani had almost coaxed her limbs to respond when a masculine throat cleared.

“Why did you not tell me about Roland’s and Richard’s debt?”

Dead silence ensued, but Sarani frowned, listening for the duchess’s reply. “It was not your burden to bear.”

“I’m not duke only when it pleases you, Mother. If you had informed me, the interest alone on the defaulted loans could have been avoided. Hundreds of thousands of pounds.”

“Which is why you need to marry an English heiress. Restore our name, not drag it through the mud. A woman of her character cannot—”