He rose. “Of course. Our dance. I’m so glad you’ve come to retrieve me. Slip back out into the ballroom now, and I’ll follow in a few minutes.”
She nodded and did as he bid. Very biddable, Lady Willow. The perfect woman to be his duchess.
“Fuck,” he said, deciding the profanity fit the situation, despite his father’s aversion to cursing. He’d never felt so confused. He rested his forehead against the wall beside the closed door, his brain trying to wrap itself around the truth. Tobias said nothing had changed, but Grayson felt a guttural shift inside. Something had changed. Everything had changed.
And yet, was Tobias right? Grayson and Henrietta existed in two different worlds while he and Lady Willow had been bred to fit perfectly within the same social sphere. Was he destined to live the life he’d been bred for or could he choose his own path? And could Henrietta possibly be a part of that path?
But first, he had promised Lady Willow a dance.
She sat exactly where he’d left her, as if she’d not left the space to find him alone in a firelit room only minutes ago. He offered her a hand and she took it without word. He pulled her into the throng of swirling couples and joined the rhythm, holding her at the exact proper distance with the exact proper amount of pressure on her back and in her hand.
She followed his lead expertly, despite her acknowledged lack of experience. “Why do you wish to marry me?”
Her question shocked him, but she continued as if she had inquired as to the next day’s weather. “You’ve not proposed. Do you wish to marry me?”
No. But he’d promised the duke not to let her know that.
“Silence is not a good answer,” she said.
He sighed, unable to find the words to convince her otherwise, unwilling to lie to her. “You are very charming, Lady Willow. We are, socially speaking, perfectly suited, but—” Across the ballroom, laughter lifted over the music. Grayson lifted his head to see Tobias teasing a group of debutants, perfectly at ease in his puce waistcoat. “But I’m not who you think I am.”
“You make little sense, my lord.”
“I’m not who my father, and your father, would like me to be. Do you have any siblings?”
She shook her head.
How did he not know that fact about her? If they married, both parties—himself and his wife—would be strangers to one another.
“My brother died at Trafalgar,” he confessed.
“I’m so sorry.”
“We weren’t very close. He was much older than I. But I loved him, no, worshipped him. He did as he pleased, everyone else be damned.”
“How exhilarating.”
“I used to do as I pleased, as well.”
“Past tense? My. This does not bode well for our potential marital arrangements.”
“Now I do as my father pleases. It pleases him I marry you.”
They danced in silence so long, he startled when she finally spoke. “I’m not certain I want to be someone’s obligation, someone’s father’s choice.”
She didn’t deserve to be an obligation. She should be someone’s joy, the way Henrietta had been, was, his. “Our fathers say our union is what is best for the dukedom, the tenants, the future progeny. You are a duke’s daughter, after all.”
“Unfortunately so, I begin to think.”
He studied her face. It shifted, a complexity of thought hidden behind a wax doll’s façade. He breathed a tight breath. “If I ask you to marry me, will you accept?”
She looked away from him. “Yes. I suppose.”
“Will you be happy to accept?”
She shrugged. “Are duke’s progeny supposed to be happy?” She attempted a laugh, but it died with the final strains of the waltz.
“My brother always was—happy, that is—but chasing happiness proved selfish. He got himself killed, leaving he dukedom without an heir.” He shook his head. “Irresponsible.”
