It was on the tip of his tongue to ask why she hadn’t fought harder for him, but he swallowed the bitter question. Rehashing that was only a recipe for misery. Falling into silence, he distracted himself with their avid audience. His gaze caught on Ravenna as she stood to the side. Guilt slashed through him. She’d practically turned into a woman overnight, and a beauty by all accounts. It would also be up to him to see her properly settled before he left.
His guilt doubled as an unpleasant thought cut through him that he was doing exactly as his mother was—finding and selecting a spouse for Ravenna—when he was so violently opposed to her doing the same for him. Rhystan shoved aside his discomfort; the rules were different for men and women. Women of quality were bred to marry well.
That doesn’t mean they relish being traded like heads of cattle.
The voice in his head sounded like Sarani.
He blew out a breath…better for him to choose a match for Ravenna than his mother. Unlike him, she couldn’t gallivant on a ship, nor could she be husbandless, and Lord knew what kind of man the duchess would approve for her—some old goat with an even older title who would only quash her bright spirit. Rhystan frowned. She was eighteen. Did she have any suitors? Was she sweet on anyone? It was curious that no gentlemen had sought her out where she stood, nearly invisible in white chiffon against the marble pillar.
“She’s charming, your sister,” Sarani said, following his stare. “I’ve enjoyed her company. At least she doesn’t want to shove me on the first ship back to India.”
He smiled. “I’ve missed the ship, you know,” he said as they executed yet another libido-torturing turn, his voice low. “And you tending to my needs.”
A smile lit her face, despite the underlying innuendo. “You mean you miss me sewing your sleeves shut and setting barnacles in your sheets?”
“I thought you emphatically declared that second one was Red’s doing.”
She flushed. “He was the bosun who scraped the things off the devil.”
God, the sound of ship’s lingo on her lips fired his blood. It was just like her to know that the curved seam on the hull was called the devil. The memory of her standing on the quarterdeck, black hair lashing into her face in those tawdry, formfitting breeches and with kukri blades in hand, had him stiffening in a second. It didn’t escape his notice that she was equally at ease on the bow of a ship surrounded by lowborn sailors as she was in a ballroom filled with the upper crust of English society. She’d been that way in Joor, too—a kindred spirit with the locals at the river and a princess with the peers at court.
It had been one of the things that had drawn him to her.
He’d never known anyone like her, not then and not now. No one had ever fit him as she had. In nautical terms, she was the true north to his south. His forgotten heart kicked stupidly against his ribs at the thought, and then that cold voice in his head chimed in, reminding him of what had happened the last time he’d felt this way about a girl. The burst of pleasure unspooling within him withered and died.
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—”
Suddenly, Sarani could not take any more. Cursing her uncooperative feet, she ran toward the back of the house and into the gardens beyond. The slight chill in the morning air was bracing enough to douse the heat billowing through her veins. She did not stop until she came to the large elm buttressing the perimeter wall at the very back of the garden.
How dare the duchess impugn her character? She was not a woman of poor integrity or lacking in moral fiber. She was proud of who she was. Her exterior—or happenstance of birth—she could not control. And besides, that should not bloody matter!
Sarani bit back a sob, covering her mouth with a fist. She wrapped her arms about herself, remembering how precious she’d felt last night at the ball. How magical it had been for a handful of moments—until Rhystan had left her without explanation and proceeded to dance with every unmarried female in attendance to the gloating smugness of his mother. Sarani’s heart had shriveled.