her white lace fan.
Alex didn’t seem to notice her at first, but then, as if feeling her gaze, he deliberately turned and looked in her direction. He smiled as their eyes met across the room. It was a secretive smile. A suggestive smile. A smile that said nothing at all, yet spoke volumes. It flooded her with a feeling she couldn’t describe, but that feeling reached all the way down to her belly, almost taking her breath away. She smiled back, unable to do anything else. Then embarrassed, she quickly averted her eyes and chatted absently with her grandmother. When she dared to look up again, he was nowhere in sight.
CHAPTER 3
“I have absolutely no intention of marrying your daughter. I do not appreciate being placed in this awkward position. You must put a stop to your wife and daughter’s gossip and misleading statements about me, or I will. And if I am the one to end it…Well, you know what that could do to her reputation. But this must end,” insisted Alexander Woodward, the seventh Duke of Woodborough, as he stood in the elegant, if rarely used, library of Lord Albert Maxwell, while hundreds of guests were downstairs dancing in their crowded ballroom. The only reason he was attending this ball tonight was to clear up this situation once and for all.
“Your father and I always thought that you and Madeline would make a fine match, Your Grace. Madeline was the toast of London last Season and held off many offers of marriage with the understanding that she would eventually marry you,” Lord Maxwell mumbled, a note of sadness in his tone. He was a very short man with a paunchy middle, typical of his years. He had a round red face, from which bulged pale, watery blue eyes, and his mostly bald head was topped by thin wisps of white hair. His white tie was askew, adding to his usual rumpled appearance, for which his wife, Ellie, was forever berating him.
Alex sighed in weariness. “I understand you were a good friend to my father, and I am sorry that you were given the impression that I was going to marry your daughter. But I made it very clear to my father before he died that I would find a wife of my own choosing. However charming Madeline is, I do not think that we would suit each other. I have known her since she was a child, and I have no interest in her. Since my father died last summer, your wife and daughter have deluded half of London into believing that I am about to offer for her. Even my own friends are beginning to believe it!” Noticing the expression on Lord Maxwell’s face, he tried to reiterate it more kindly. “Madeline is a lovely young lady and will make a wonderful wife for some man. I am simply not that man. And not at any time have I ever led her, or you, or my own father to believe otherwise.”
The last thing he wanted was a marriage to a spoiled little society chit like Madeline Maxwell. Everyone had heard the stories about her childhood and the excess to which her parents had spoiled her. The Maxwells had given their little girl her own miniature pony and cart at four years old, an extravagant Worth gown from Paris made especially for her at age ten, and a diamond and ruby tiara for her sixteenth birthday. How would one ever satisfy a wife with those expectations?
An uncomfortable silence ensued before the duke added, “If you do not wish to inform Madeline of my true intentions, I will discuss the matter with her personally.”
“It is just that she has her heart set on you and I don’t know how to break the news to her.” Lord Maxwell’s small, beefy hand shook as he took a gulp of whiskey. “Or to my wife.”
The duke ignored that last statement. “Tonight we can say that Madeline has changed her mind and that she does not wish to marry me.”
Lord Maxwell scoffed at the very idea. “Who would believe that?”
The duke knew that Lord Maxwell was correct. At thirty years old he was the most sought-after bachelor in London. The good Lord had graced him with innumerable assets. A keen intelligence, a charming magnetism, and a vast fortune were just a few of the features that made him attractive to the opposite sex. The Duke of Woodborough was an uncommonly handsome man and well aware of it. Yet he did not flaunt or take advantage of its powers. “Well, she could say that she dislikes me. She could say that I am a cad, a rake, a drunkard. I really don’t care how she explains it. Blame everything on me and I will not say a word against her.”
“Everyone just assumed that you and Madeline would marry, especially since your father passed away. But I suppose I could just let the word out that there will be no marriage.” Lord Maxwell conceded sadly, his fat jowls sagging in misery.
The duke said, “Well, it is not as though there has ever been a formal announcement about it.”
“And what sort of announcement would that be?” a playful, girlish voice asked.
Lady Madeline Maxwell, a petite vision of femininity in a baby blue silk gown that accentuated the pale blue of her eyes, breezed into the library. She tossed her yellow curls and smiled sweetly at her father, then turned her full attention upon the Duke of Woodborough.
“Uh…Madeline…darling…The duke and I were…just…discussing…” Lord Maxwell stammered weakly.
The duke, looking directly at Lady Madeline, explained without pretense, “The fact that there will be no marriage between us.”
The bright smile vanished from Madeline’s pretty face. “Whatever do you mean, Your Grace?”
She was confused. This was not going at all how she intended. The duke, after settling matters with her father, was supposed to ask her to stroll in the rose garden and while there become so captivated by her charm and beauty that he would propose marriage. Ask her to be his duchess. The Duchess of Woodborough. That was what was supposed to happen. But now…
She did not like the look of his eyes. They were frosty and hard. Ice blue. She was accustomed to gentlemen looking at her with longing and appreciation. Men always did what she wanted them to. They were so easy to manipulate. A flutter of her long eyelashes, one pretty pout, a toss of her curls, and they were hers.
The duke was not behaving correctly. She had been positive that he was in love with her when they spoke last Christmas at the Talbots’ Holiday Ball. He had smiled at her and commented that she had grown into a lovely young lady and that she was no longer the little girl he remembered teasing. She mentioned that their fathers hoped that they would marry someday, and he said he was aware of their wishes.
Everyone thought that they should marry. Everyone said she was perfect for him. His own father had wanted him to marry her, knowing full well that she would make a beautiful duchess. Every man wanted her. He would be crazy not to marry her! Yet he did not look like a man about to propose marriage now, standing before the mantel with his handsome features set in a dark scowl. So what had gone wrong?
“I mean, Lady Madeline, that I do not appreciate the gossip about us. However lovely you are, I have never mentioned marriage to you, or anyone else for that matter. You and I have not even seen each other in months. I am sorry to put this so bluntly, but I have no intention of proposing to you,” the duke stated, his eyes locked with Madeline’s.
An anguished moan escaped from Lord Maxwell. He sank heavily into a rich leather armchair, taking another long gulp of whiskey as he went.
Lady Madeline was stunned. Utterly stunned. No one had ever spoken so rudely to her before. How dare he! Her mind raced feverishly as she struggled to get her thoughts around the meaning of his words.
He did not want her.
He did not want her. Her. How could he not want her? Why, she was the one that everyone wanted! Didn’t he just say that she was lovely? But wasn’t she the loveliest, the most charming, the most fashionable,
