Moments later she was enclosed in the library with the Duke of Bradbury, who stood at the fireplace warming himself after being out in the chilly rain. He turned to survey her, expressionless. "Your mother is quite all right, if that's what worries you."

Evie gulped down her surprise at the knowledge that she'd actually forgotten all about her mother since...since when?

Probably since seeing Gareth in the lake.

"Last I saw her was at Tyndall Abbey," Bradbury went on. "She and I are not married, and we're not going to marry, Evangeline...if I may call you that."

She didn't know why he'd want to at this point, if he wasn't going to be her newest stepfather, after all. "I'm sorry, Your Grace."

"Oh, rot. You're not sorry. You never wanted us to marry. Neither did my brother. You can admit to me that you're pleased about this. Go on, Evangeline. Indulge yourself in a deep sigh of relief. Dance a jig."

Evie indulged in the deep sigh, but refrained from the jig. Maybe later, when she was alone upstairs in her bedchamber. "I can't deny that I'm pleased to hear this. But I do regret for your sake that it happened, because you must have cared for my mother, or you never would have proposed to her."

"That's just it," Bradbury said matter-of-factly. "I never did."

She blinked, as if that would help her to comprehend whatever he just said. Of course, it didn't. "I beg your pardon, Your Grace. Did you just say...you never proposed marriage to my mother?"

"Never." He nodded toward the credenza on the other side of the fireplace. "Would you care for a brandy? You look as if you could use one, though I doubt you've ever had brandy before. It's just that I don't carry smelling salts."

"I'm not going to faint, and while the brandy is tempting, something tells me I'd best keep a clear head. Then how did you and my mother become betrothed? I mean, this wasn't something your father or hers arranged many years ago."

He grinned, his teeth a brilliant white in the candlelit gloom of the library. "Do you remember when your mother eloped with Lord Milner?"

"How could I forget? My late uncle arranged for him to marry me."

Bradbury plucked a snifter from the mantel and drained it. "But you didn't really wish to marry him, did you? He was old enough to be your grandfather, and you were only what?"

"Eighteen. You're right. At that age, I naturally wished to wait for someone closer to my age to make an offer, but..." Her voice nearly broke as she recalled Gareth's marriage proposal out by the lake—and how he'd completely forgotten it only a few hours later. "...but it never happened."

"It only hasn't happened yet," Bradbury said, but Evie knew he was just saying that to be polite. "Do you think your mother loved Milner?"

"No more than I did. But then, my mother has never married for love. She's only ever married to advance her position—first the wealthy merchant, then the earl's younger son, followed by the marquess's younger brother with the wife alive and raving in Bedlam, and finally Lord Milner, a baron in his own right." She fluttered her fingers as she slowly moved her arm upward. "A duke had to be next on her list."

Bradbury stalked over to the credenza and helped himself to another brandy. "Your mother has only ever loved one man—the current Marquess of Frampton. She confided in me the whole pitiful tale when I visited Tyndall Abbey earlier this summer. His father didn't approve of her because her father was only a penniless baron."

"So her penniless father married her to a wealthy man in trade," Evie said, "but then he died and left her a great deal of money, which attracted fortune hunters like my own father."

"By then the future marquess was leg-shackled to someone else, my father's sister, a marriage arranged by his father and my grandfather," Bradbury continued. "In due course, he became the marquess and was widowed, and so was your mother again. He invited her, and you with your betrothed, to FramptonCastle where he hoped to rekindle an old flame. She hoped to do the same. Yet nothing happened when she arrived there." He sipped the brandy, peering at Evie over the rim of the snifter. "Do you remember anything happening?"

"Only her elopement with Milner."

"She confided in me that she never meant to go through with that," Bradbury said. "She was positive Frampton would chase her and Milner to Gretna Green to stop them and marry her himself—but for some reason, he didn't. She went through with the marriage, she told me, because Milner didn't know her true reasons for luring him into the parson's mousetrap—or perhaps, I should say, to the blacksmith's anvil. The poor man sincerely believed she was in love with him, and naturally he thought he was more suitable for a middle-aged widow like her than a young debutante like you."

"I was never a debutante, but my mother has always been flighty," said Evie. "And it's left her with a less than sterling reputation that's extended to me. That's why I was never a debutante. Shall I tell you why the marquess never went after my mother and Milner? I pleaded with him not to. At the time, I thought she was doing me a great favor by eloping with him. Frampton agreed, and even muttered something about biding his time, because there must have been a Stuart on the throne when Milner was born, he was so old. I never gave it another thought till I came here earlier this week, and learned the betrothal was nothing but a charade to build a fire under Frampton's feet."

"And this time, it worked." He lifted his snifter, as if toasting the success of the whole scheme. "You'll be happy to hear that your mother and Lord Frampton are now married."

So her mother was now married for a fourth time—or was it fifth?—while Evie still had yet to marry even once.

"If you won't have a brandy, then at least sit down," the duke entreated her.

Evie sat. "How did my mother persuade Your Grace to go along with this? What do you gain from it?"

He set his snifter on the mantel and stood in front of the fireplace, hands behind his back and booted feet spread apart as he faced her with a solemn expression. "She didn't have to persuade me. I'm the one who suggested it to her. As for what I expect to gain, that would be her daughter's hand in marriage."

Evie blurted the first thing that popped into her head. "I thought I was her only daughter, by her second marriage. Does she perchance have one from her first?" Honestly, Evie would not be surprised.

"As far as I know, you're the only daughter she's ever had," Bradbury replied, his expression still somber. "Therefore, I would like to ask that you consent to be my wife."

She had to be dreaming. She blinked rapidly, but nothing changed. She was still sitting on the sofa, and Bradbury still stood before her looking deadly serious.

"Shall I get down on bended knee?"

"No! I mean—this is—why me, Your Grace?"

"Why not you?"

Where to begin? "I believe I told you that I was at Madame Delphine's several months ago, where I had a—an encounter with your brother."

"Yes, you did tell me that. But he doesn't know it was you. And we never have to—"

"He didn't know at the time I told Your Grace. But I've managed to tell him since."

"Then where is he now? Why has he not married you?"

How to continue? Evie started blinking again, this time to hold back the tears that rushed to her eyes. "He thinks I might be a traitor because of a letter I was carrying from Lady Ruth Hale to her sister, Lady Flora Benedict."

The Duke of Bradbury let loose with a long sigh that was almost a growl. "I daresay you're no traitor any more than he is. Or I am. But if that's what he chooses to believe, then he's a fool and he doesn't deserve you. I believe you deserve better, and it's all the more reason you should marry me. As Duchess of Bradbury, you'll be protected from any hint of scandal or suggestion of treason."

Evie's mind raced. Only twenty-four hours ago, she was certain she couldn't be with child, because what she and Gareth did twenty-four hours prior to that was her first time. Perhaps it wasn't possible to conceive a child the first time—but what if it was?

If she married Bradbury today—assuming he had a special license in his pocket—and she shared his bed tonight, only two days after sharing Gareth's—then who was to proclaim the identity of the baby's father if she happened to give birth nine months from now? Would Bradbury know the difference?

More importantly, would his younger brother suspect? Or even care? Tears finally flooded out of Evie's eyes at that thought.

Certainly there were many benefits to marrying the Duke of Bradbury. Protection, wealth, social status. But something was still missing. Something she knew was more important to her than all those other things cobbled together.

Love.

She didn't love the duke. She loved his brother. And she didn't know if she could spend the rest of her life married to Bradbury, facing his brother at family gatherings, all the while remembering that evening at Madame Delphine's...or that afternoon in the bedchamber upstairs.

For what if Gareth recalled the same? Now she knew how he must have felt upon learning his brother was betrothed to her mother, whom he thought was the mystery woman he'd dallied with at Madame Delphine's.

But if he mistakenly thought she was a traitor—and if he considered it a further betrayal if she married his brother—would he feel that same sense of wrongness and dread about the whole thing? Would he dare reveal to his brother that he might be the father of Bradbury's firstborn? Or would he conclude he'd dodged the bullet that was Evangeline Benedict?

Yet she couldn't agree to Bradbury's proposal without letting him know her true feelings for his brother. She gazed up at the duke through a blur of tears. "I don't love Your Grace."

"That doesn't matter to me. And it shouldn't to you. I say again: Will you marry me, Evangeline?"

"I'm afraid I won't make you the happiest of men."

"I don't recall that was part of my proposal, though I know that's something that some men say when offering marriage. I don't expect you to make me the happiest of men, or for that matter, the unhappiest. Will you say yes?"

"Why?" She rose to her feet. "Why do you insist on marrying me? I mean, aside from the fact that I must be unsuitable in every way?"

"Maybe that is why. Why do you insist on questioning my motives? Would you be more agreeable if I told you that you are the bride my father arranged for me when we were children?"

"Am I?" she asked incredulously. She remembered arguing this point with Gareth on the day of her brother's wedding.

"I've been on this mortal coil for over thirty years now," said Bradbury, "and for most of that time, I've lived with the knowledge that my father arranged a marriage for me when I was too young to remember, to a girl who was but an infant at the time."

"And you're saying that girl was me? Is me?" Evie still didn't believe it. "Then why did my late uncle arrange for me to marry Lord Milner?"

Bradbury arched his thick, tawny brows. "Because he didn't know that your father had already arranged something with my father? Or maybe your uncle knew but he didn't want you to marry a duke, and since my father, by the time you came of age, was traveling abroad and I wasn't exactly pressing any sort of suit then, why, old Tyndall decided to shackle you to old Milner, and you know the rest."

That did sound like the sort of vindictive thing Evie's late uncle would do. He'd never approved of her mother, and by extension, Evie herself.

All these years, no one had paid court to her because she was already meant for a duke?

Evie was so stunned, that she sat back down again. And almost asked for that brandy.

"But why..."

"Why do you keep asking why? Why do you question any of this?"

"Well, why would you agree to pretend to be betrothed to my mother, in exchange for my hand, if there's already a contract somewhere stipulating that we're to marry no matter what?"

"For that matter, why would you keep asking why I want to marry you if that contract already exists?" Bradbury shook his head, and he may even have rolled his eyes. Evie wasn't sure, because of his head moving side to side.

"Then why does Your Grace even feel the need to ask?"

He stopped shaking his head, and fixed his gaze on her as he leaned forward a few inches, his hands still behind his back. "Because I'm not an ogre. Our fathers are dead, Evangeline, and you're over one and twenty while I'm over one and thirty. I would never force any woman to marry me. For one thing, I don't think I should have to. I'm a duke, after all. That is why I am asking you. You can say yes, or you can say no. Just don't, for the love of God, ask why again."

Even though he was giving her a choice, by now Evie didn't think she had any choice. Furthermore, this time he didn't point out that she was well over one and twenty. And her mother had just married again for the—well, who knew how many times by now? The desperation Evie thought she'd vanquished reared its ugly head again.

So she replied, "Yes, Your Grace. I will marry you."