“I’ll Marry the First Man Who Enters,” She Joked — Then the Duke Walked In
Chapter 2
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Philip let out a nervous, breathless laugh. "Don't say such things.""I mean it." Bella raised her glass of flat champagne in a mock toast toward the grand double doors at the entrance of the ballroom. "To my future husband. May he be deaf and wealthy."The brass handles turned. The heavy oak doors parted with a groan that cut through the music. The major-domo pounded his silver staff against the marble floor:"His Grace, Augustus Wallace, the Duke of Westford!"The music did not stop, but the conversation certainly did. A collective intake of breath sucked the remaining oxygen from the room.Bella froze. The champagne burned the back of her throat.Augustus Wallace did not look like a duke; he looked like a man who had been dragged out of a tavern brawl and stuffed into a formal evening coat. He was massive—not elegantly tall, but broad and thick, with shoulders that threatened to split the dark wool of his jacket. For ten years he had managed a grimy, soot-choked coal mine in Yorkshire; he had inherited the title only six months ago after a carriage accident wiped out his uncle and two pristine cousins in one bloody swoop.He stepped into the ballroom. He didn't carry a walking stick; he carried himself like a blunt instrument. His hair was dark and shorn roughly, his jaw shadowed with a heavy stubble that defied the clean-shaven fashion of the ton. His nose had clearly been broken and set poorly.Bella stared."Well," Philip whispered, his voice trembling. "He certainly isn't a chimney sweep."Unfortunately, Bella was not the only one who had heard her declaration. Lady Cowper, a woman with ears like a bat and a mouth like a town crier, had been standing just on the other side of the fern. Bella watched in slow, agonizing horror as Lady Cowper's eyes widened, her fan snapping shut. The dowager instantly pivoted, whispering fiercely into the ear of the woman beside her. Within 60 seconds, the whisper rippled through the crowd: eyes darted from the hulking figure of the duke in the doorway to the faded yellow silk of Bella Holloway in the corner.Augustus stood at the edge of the dance floor. He looked distinctly murderous; he hated London, and he hated the aristocracy.The rumor mill reached him before he could even signal for a drink. A bold young lord, one of Cavenaugh's sycophants, stepped into the duke's path, laughing. The young man pointed a gloved finger toward Bella's alcove, his words carrying over the violins.Augustus turned his head. His eyes found Bella. They were not sparkling or expressive; they were the flat, hard brown of packed earth. He did not look amused. He did not look intrigued. He looked directly at her with a heavy, suffocating calculation.Bella couldn't breathe. She couldn't look away.The silence stretched, thin and brittle, until Augustus finally broke the gaze, turning his back to signal a footman for whiskey.