A LADY FOR A DUKE

"Yes. You are right. But the Duke and I talked often, or rather we used to."

"Why do you want to know if I remember him?"

Her father's dark eyes were still sharp and they gave her a very direct look. "We made a certain...gentleman's agreement one night. It was a long time ago and I forgot about it. Especially when he broke off all contact. However..."

Uncharacteristically, her father paused, seeming hesitant. "I got a letter yesterday from the Duke's office, reminding me of the agreement and asking me to honor it."

Anna frowned, unsure of where her father was going with this. "What agreement? Please don't say it concerns money, because you know-"

"It's not about money," Luke interrupted, his voice flat.

The foreboding that she'd forced away earlier crept back, though she fought it down. "Then what is it about?"

Her father's fingers picked at the edge of his blanket, yet more signs of an agitation that wasn't like him at all.

What have you done now? Anna wondered. The foreboding gripped her tighter, even though she hadn't done anything that would cause her father grief, not recently at least. Maybe it was about that man she'd met a week ago. She swallowed. No, surely not? Who would have told him? No one else had been at the lake, she was sure of it. And anyway, what did that have to do with the Duke of Springbrook?

"Magnus and I went to university together," her father said. "After his divorce from his first wife, he remarried and his new wife was pregnant. They knew it was a boy. We were celebrating and he suggested that if I was to ever have a daughter, then she could marry his son, who would be the next Duke of Springbrook. I...confess I'd had more than a couple of pints and I was a little worse for wear. I agreed that it was a fine idea and so we shook on it. He never mentioned it again and neither did I, and soon I forgot about it."

Anna blinked in surprise. She couldn't imagine her father drinking let alone being 'a little worse for wear'. He was famously abstemious and hated rowdiness of any kind. He also wasn't the type to indulge in drunken gentlemen's agreements either.

"I see," she said, puzzled. "So why are you mentioning this to me now?"

"Because the Duke of Springbrook's son, now the current Duke of Springbrook, has asked me to make good on my promise."

Anna's surprise deepened. An arranged betrothal between the children of two friends lost in the mists of time? The idea was so ridiculous, so utterly preposterous, it had to be a joke. "Dad, are you sure this isn't a scam? Is the letter legitimate?"

"Yes, of course it's legitimate and I know a scam when I see one." His mouth thinned. "The son you were betrothed to is dead, but it doesn't matter. His first son, the new Duke, wishes to see you tomorrow night at Haerton so he can put his proposal to you."

Anna opened her mouth. Shut it again. She didn't know whether to laugh at the insanity of the situation or be outraged by it. But, since she didn't display any extremes of emotion these days, she settled on a tight smile. "I appreciate the invitation obviously, but he can't possibly think that I'm going to agree to it."

But her father only stared at her. "He has offered certain...financial incentives."

Oh. No wonder her father was taking this so seriously. She was very conscious all of a sudden that her palms were damp and her heartbeat had quickened.

"What kind of financial incentives?" she asked, pleased by how level she sounded.

"I don't know," her father said, his gaze still sharp and direct. "His letter was very brief. I assume he'll tell you more when you meet him."

She stiffened. "What do you mean, "when"? I'm not going to Haerton-"

"I want you to hear him out, Anna," Luke said flatly. "We can't keep going on the way we have."

"But I've taken on extra shifts-"

"That's not going to help either of us and you know it." Her father's expression became hard, the way it always did when he thought she was disobeying him.

"The house needs to have money spent on it, or we need to sell it. I've been looking into treatment for myself too. There are a couple of options that would improve my quality of life immensely, but they're expensive. And I'm tired of waiting. This could be the answer, Anna."

It was true. Depending on what kind of 'financial incentives' the Duke was offering, it could mean the solution to all their difficulties. And all she'd have to do was marry a complete stranger.

You wanted to fix this. You're the reason you're in this mess in the first place, after all. That was also true. Her father might have been a world-renowned surgeon if her mother hadn't wanted a baby and hadn't talked her father into it; he hadn't been keen on the idea. And if her mother hadn't then died six months later in a car accident, leaving her grieving father to bring up a child he hadn't wanted in the first place. An overly emotional, stubborn and headstrong child, whom her reserved and self-contained father had no idea what to do with. And whose behavior had been a contributing factor in the stress that had triggered his stroke.

She swallowed down the guilt, forced it aside along with all the other unwanted emotions that still seethed inside her, no matter how many years she'd spent ignoring them. Once, she'd thought that they'd go away altogether, or at least she wouldn't feel them so very deeply, but that day hadn't come yet.

When she'd been very young and her father's disapproval and cold distance had been too much for her, she'd used to escape into the woods and the Haerton estate, where she could shout and sing and even scream to herself and no one would tell her to be quiet or to go away, or that she was a damn nuisance.

But she didn't go into the woods often these days, because these days she was much better at controlling herself. She wasn't that difficult child any more.

"In that case," she said without inflection, "Of course I'll see him."