She Kissed Him In Front Of Everyone To Save Him — Not Knowing That She Had Just Saved The Richest Duke
Chapter 7
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Lydia’s jaw dropped. "That is absurd!""It is," Alistair agreed. "But it is the narrative we now share. And I do not allow my name to be attached to public scandal without taking control of it. You claimed me, Miss Thorne." His voice was soft, but it carried the weight of an anvil. "And now I am claiming you back."The red wax of the Archbishop’s seal looked remarkably like dried blood against the scarred wood of the table. Lydia stared at it. She did not touch it.The silence in the small parlor stretched until it felt brittle enough to snap. Margaret had stopped weeping in the corner and was now holding her breath, her eyes darting between the heavy parchment and the imposing man sitting across from her sister."Oh, you are insane," Lydia said finally. Her voice was flat. The panic had burned out, leaving a cold, hard clarity in its wake.Alistair Montgomery leaned back in the fragile wooden chair, which groaned ominously under his weight. He did not look insulted; he looked mildly bored."I assure you, my mental faculties are perfectly intact. I am simply a man who recognizes an efficient solution to a persistent problem.""I am not a solution. I am a ruined woman in a cheap dress.""You are exactly what I require," Alistair countered, his gray eyes pinning her in place. "For five years, the mothers of Mayfair have treated me like a prized stag to be hunted down. They have thrown their daughters in my path, compromised my friends, bribed my servants, and attempted every snare conceivable. It is exhausting. It is thoroughly insulting."He gestured vaguely toward the window, toward the foggy streets of London."If I marry one of them, I reward the behavior. I tether myself to a family of sycophants who care only for the Westmorland coffers. If I marry you..." He paused, his gaze dropping to her mouth for a fraction of a second before meeting her eyes again. "...I marry a woman who threw herself on a grenade for a stranger. A woman who believed I had nothing to offer, yet risked everything to pull me from the fire. You have no powerful family. You have no hidden agenda. You simply have a spine.""You want a shield," Lydia realized, the truth settling in her chest like a stone."I want a wife," he corrected softly. "I require an heir, and I require a duchess who will not faint when the wind changes direction, nor bleed my accounts dry to impress people she despises. We understand each other, Lydia. We both view society for the blood sport it is."He used her Christian name deliberately. It felt like a trespass, a heavy footstep in a quiet room.Lydia looked at her hands. Her fingernails were short, unpolished. She thought of the butcher’s bill on the mantel. She thought of the cold winters, the terrifying cough Margaret had developed last December, the constant, grinding anxiety of counting pennies.