obvious that you do not care for me at all?”
Why? Daniel mused bitterly. Because he had no choice. Because death had given Daniel’s father the victory over his son and heir that he had never succeeded in acquiring during his life. It was a victory that Daniel had done everything in his power to avoid for the last six months, but which he could no longer afford to ignore if the Wycliffe estates were not to fall into complete disrepair through lack of funds.
“I realize you are very young, Alice, but surely you must have observed this last two seasons that marriages amongst the ton are rarely made for love?” he drawled mockingly. “Other factors, such as money, land, or merely social standing, are of far more importance in a marriage than an emotion as destructive as love.”
Alice was well aware of the cold and often cynical reasons for marriages amongst the ton. Was aware of it, and deplored it. “I fail to see which of those three things could have prompted you to offer for me, my lord,” she taunted.
The earl sighed his irritation. “I suppose, as my future wife, you have the right to know my reasons for marriage—”
“You suppose…?” Alice echoed incredulously.
Daniel gave a haughty inclination of his head. “To put it simply, my father, in his infinite wisdom—” his mouth curled disdainfully “—saw fit to leave the earl of Stanford’s fortune outside of the estate, with the condition that I, as his heir, would inherit half that fortune if I marry within the year following his death, and the second half if a future heir is born during the first year of that marriage. Failure to do those things would see half, or all, of that fortune in the hands of a cousin who, I do assure you, is even less deserving of it than I am.”
Alice found that very hard to believe. Daniel, at the age of nine and twenty, had the reputation and handsome looks of a god fallen from Mount Olympus; his hair was the gold of ripe corn, his wickedly sensual eyes the blue of the sky in a face etched and hewn as if from granite, and softened only by a sinfully moulded mouth. His shoulders were wide, waist tapered, hips and legs elegantly muscled, his every movement a delight to a woman’s senses.
Was it any wonder that women of the ton, both young and old, so often fell into the snare of those sensuously golden good looks?
Was it any wonder that Alice, too, had fallen under the spell of that sensual attraction the first time she set eyes on him a year ago…?
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