Page 4 of The Feared Duke’s Found Family

Fanny frowned, her brows drawing together. “After what happened? What do you mean?”

Dorothy’s jaw dropped slightly. She pulled back, her eyes searching Fanny’s face for any sign of a joke. “You cannot be serious. You honestly do not know?”

“Know what?” Fanny asked, her voice rising slightly in frustration. “My father ruined our name four years ago, Dorothy. I have spent four years avoiding the gazes of half of London and hiding from suitors who wouldn’t even step on the same side of the street as me. I do not spend my mornings listening to the latest gossip rags!”

Dorothy took a quick glance over both shoulders, leaning in until her blonde hair brushed Fanny’s ear. “His wife, Fanny. Do you truly not know how his triplets became motherless?”

Fanny froze. “Triplets?”

The word felt heavy, strange on her tongue. Before Dorothy could answer, a strange sensation prickled at the nape of Fanny’s neck.

She lifted her head, her gaze drifting past Dorothy’s shoulder, past the velvet curtains of the alcove, and straight across the buzzing ballroom.

The Duke stood by the tall arched windows on the far side of the room. He wasn’t talking to anyone. He held a glass of dark liquor, his broad frame cutting a dark, imposing silhouette against the glass. He was watching her. His dark gray eyes were locked onto hers, unblinking, heavy, and absolute.

Fanny’s chest tightened. Her pulse gave a hard, sudden kick against her ribs.

He is the father of triplets?

She searched his harsh, angular face from across the room—the line of his jaw, the dark hair falling over his forehead, the sheer, unyielding width of his shoulders.

A man like that? With three small children waiting somewhere in the country?

“Fanny,” Dorothy began, her voice dropping into an urgent whisper, “you must listen to me…”

“Lady Fanny.”

The sharp, nasal voice cut through the air.

Lord Bromley stepped into the alcove, a slick, self-satisfied smile spreading across his narrow face. He wore a coat of overly bright blue, and his neckcloth was tied in an absurdly high knot that tilted his chin upward. He held out a gloved hand, his fingers twitching.

“I believe the set is about to form,” Bromley said, his eyes sliding over Fanny’s simple gown with a dismissive sweep before coming back to her face. “May I have the honor of this dance?”

Fanny took Lord Bromley’s offered hand with a thin, polite smile that barely reached her eyes.

The set was forming down the center of the ballroom floor, couples stepping into line as the orchestra tuned their violins. Bromley led her into position, his fingers clenching too tightly around her gloved wrist. She eased her arm back half an inch, but he held on until they turned to face one another for the opening bow.

“I must say, Lady Fanny,” Bromley began as the music struck up, his voice dripping with condescension as they stepped forward and back in rhythm. “It is quite brave of you to pursue a duke. But do you not think you are being a bit too ambitious? A woman in your position is hardly good enough for a duke.”

Fanny kept her chin parallel to the floor, her expression serenely composed even as a sharp knot tightened in her stomach. She met his gaze directly as they crossed hands in the figure.

“I have no interest in the Duke of Hilgrove, my lord,” she replied smoothly, her voice calm and level. “And besides, I am an earl’s daughter. There have been marriages in London between people of far more unequal stations than ours.”

Bromley scoffed, an ugly, wet sound that made the couple beside them cast a sideways glance. His lip curled back. “An earl’s daughter whose father left her without a copper to her name. You are a woman, Lady Fanny, and a spinster at that. You are in no position to have such ambitions.”

Fanny paused as the dance brought them face-to-face once more. She blinked at him, tilting her head with genuine, quiet curiosity. How being a woman disqualified her from being courted by a gentleman, when women were the only creatures gentlemen ever courted, was a mystery only Bromley’s narrow mind could produce.

“If you truly believe that being a woman disqualifies one from the duke’s attention,” Fanny said, her voice dropping into a razor-sharp, pleasant murmur, “and you feel so strongly about who is good enough for him, perhaps you should court him yourself.”

Bromley froze in the middle of the floor.

The dull color drained from his face, replaced instantly by a mottled red that deepened to purple around his jaw, then a sickly pale green at the temples. His nostrils flared wide.

Before Fanny could complete the next turn of the figure, his hand shot out. His fingers clamped around her upper arm with bruising force, dragging her out of the line and into the shadowed space behind a grand marble pillar.

“Listen to me, you arrogant little chit,” Bromley hissed, his face inches from hers, his breath hot against her cheek. “Your sister thought she was above me, too, and I am done being made a fool of by the two of you!”

Fanny winced, her fingers digging into his sleeve to push him away. “Release me this instant, my lord.”