A LADY FOR A DUKE

"Well, yes I can," said Diana in her usual calming voice. Sometimes Cedric wondered if anything ever got to her. "Your father was a very old fashioned man, so I'm not surprised. Look, I'm sure no one will expect you to force this lady.... Whoever she is... To marry you. So why don't you meet her, and decide for yourself if you would like her to be your wife.... If not, or if she says no, then you can start searching for someone else."

"Fine," Cedric agreed and hung up. As far as he was concerned, he and his father were very different people who agreed on nothing, and they certainly wouldn't agree on who he was going to marry. He'd meet this lady, just for the sake of doing so, and then since he had to, he'd find himself a wife of his choosing. To hell with what... Or who Magnus Blackwood wanted.

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A Week later, Anna was upstairs in her father's office giving it a good dusting. It was a small but cozy space at the back of the house, overlooking the little rose garden that she tried to maintain herself since her father hadn't been able to care for it following his stroke. It didn't look like much of a garden now, as she knew next to nothing about caring for roses. But she couldn't afford to employ a gardener, so it was that or nothing.

She had dreams every so often, of going to university and doing a science degree, studying Biology and Natural Sciences, but of course that was impossible. Not when she barely earned enough to cover her and her father's existing expenses and maintenance for the old cottage, let alone for university fees. And then there was the ongoing issue of care for him. She could leave him alone for the day while she worked, but not longer than that.

She definitely wasn't able to leave him while she undertook a degree, though study by distance might be an option. But still there was the issue of fees. It was a situation that both her and her father were unhappy with, but both of them were trapped in it and there wasn't much to be done.

She couldn't leave him alone. He was her father, and she owed it to him. Not only because he'd had to give up his career as a surgeon after his stroke, but also because he'd brought her up after her mother died, and that hadn't been easy. She'd been a difficult child, hard to manage even for the nannies he'd employed. Eventually he'd been forced to bring her up himself, which had greatly impacted on the career he'd wanted for himself-as he'd never ceased to point out to her.

It wasn't his fault that they had no money and the cottage was falling down around their ears. It wasn't his fault that he was limited in what he could do because she wasn't able to help him physically the way he needed her to. It wasn't his fault that she'd basically ruined his life.

Anna knew all that. Just as she knew it was her job to fix it. She frowned ferociously at her duster, her brain sorting through various money-making scenarios. The extra shifts she'd picked up at the cafe would help, but they weren't a good long-term solution. No, she was going to have to think of something else.

Her phone in her jeans pocket buzzed.

She took it out and glanced at the screen, and saw a text from her father:

Come down to the sitting room.

Since his stroke had left him unable to walk with any ease, he'd taken to texting her when he needed her to do something for him. It was a system that worked very well, except when she was in the middle of doing something and he was impatient. But luckily those instances were few and far between.

The Hall was where he usually was, sitting in his old armchair near the brick fireplace when she got downstairs, his handsome face drooping slightly on one side due to the effects of the stroke. He'd always been a stern, serious man who'd never had much time for humor, and today he seemed even more serious than usual.

"Sit down, Anna," he said in sententious tones.

Anna checked-surreptitiously, because he hated it when she fussed-that he had what he needed on the table beside his chair, then sat in the armchair opposite. "What is it, Dad?" she asked.

"I have some news." Anna couldn't help but notice that he seemed agitated, which was very unlike him. "Something that I haven't told you and should have."

A curl of foreboding tightened inside her, but she ignored it. If her father hated her fussing, he hated her worrying more. In fact, he hated all excess emotion, and so Anna had spent many years curbing her wayward feelings and getting them under control.

"That sounds... Serious," she said.

"That's because it is." Her father gave her his usual repressive stare, as if he expected her to start screaming or weeping or performing any other such unwanted emotional display.

When she said nothing, he gave an approving nod. "Well, you recall Magnus Blackwood, don't you? Who died a couple of months ago?"

Anna knew who Magnus Blackwood was. He was the Duke of Springbrook, who owned Haerton and with whom her father had once been friends years earlier. He'd been a virtual recluse for the past two years before he died, and coupled with her father's physical limitations, had meant it was a friendship very much in the past tense even before he died.

Reminded suddenly of Haerton, Anna caught her breath as yet again the memory of what had happened just over a week ago rushed to fill her head. Of the beautiful man coming out of the lake and of the way he'd touched her.

Heat crept into her cheeks and she had to pretend she was examining a loose thread on the edge of the sofa cushion to hide it. The memory of that wretched encounter kept creeping up on her whenever she least expected it, no matter that she'd put the entire incident from her mind the instant she'd fled. And there should be no reason to think of it now. None at all.

"Yes, I remember Magnus Blackwood," she said, forcing the memory away and trying to bring her attention back to her father. "I think I only met him once...Several years ago."