She Kissed a Stranger Before the Entire Ballroom to Stop a Bullet—Three Days Later, England’s Richest Duke Appeared at Her Door Holding Her Last Three Shillings and a Marriage Contract She Could Not Refuse

PART 3

The Duke of Keilder sat in his study at three in the morning, staring at three silver shillings arranged in a neat row on his mahogany desk.

He had been sitting there for two hours.

The fire had burned down to embers. The house was silent. He had dismissed his valet, refused dinner, and told the housekeeper that he was not to be disturbed for any reason short of the house collapsing. And still he sat, watching the coins catch the lamplight, as if they might reveal some hidden truth he had missed.

He had been called many things in his thirty-four years. The richest peer in England. The most ruthless businessman in London. A man who owned half of Derbyshire and controlled political seats like chess pieces. He had built his fortune from the wreckage his father had left — a title drowning in debt, an estate hemorrhaging money, a name that had become synonymous with decay. At twenty-two, Henry Cavendish had inherited nothing but ruin and obligation. He had rebuilt everything from the ground up, brick by brick, pound by pound, until he owned more than his father had ever dreamed of losing.

He had done it by trusting no one. By showing no weakness. By keeping his heart locked behind walls so high that nothing could scale them.

And then a woman in a twice-dyed gown had walked out of the shadows and kissed him.

The memory of it would not leave him. The collision of her mouth against his. The fierce, desperate courage in her eyes. The way she had hauled him down by the lapels as if she were pulling him back from the edge of a cliff. She had believed he was a clerk. A secretary. A nobody. And she had thrown herself between him and a bullet anyway.

He had let her believe it. He had stood there in his plain black coat, saying nothing, letting her assumption stand, because he had been too stunned to speak. No one had ever defended him. No one had ever risked anything for him. He was the Duke of Keilder. People risked themselves for his approval, not for his safety.

And she had given him her last three shillings.

Henry picked up one of the coins. He turned it over in his fingers. It was worn thin, the engraving nearly faded. It was worth almost nothing. It was worth more than every gold sovereign in his vaults.

He had spent the past three days finding out everything about her. Beatrice Holling. Twenty-six years old. Her father had died five years ago, leaving four thousand pounds in gambling debts, a mortgaged townhouse, and a younger daughter with no dowry. She had survived by selling her mother’s jewelry piece by piece, dismissing her staff until only the elderly butler remained. The butcher cut her credit on Fridays. The coal merchant had cut it last week.

She was three weeks away from debtor’s prison. Her sister was three weeks away from an asylum for indigent gentlewomen, or worse.

And she had given her last three shillings to a stranger.

Henry set the coin down. He stood up and walked to the window. The moon hung low over Hyde Park, casting silver light across the empty streets. He thought about the carriage he could have hired, the driver he could have summoned with a single word. He thought about the fact that she had never once considered that he might be lying.

He thought about the warmth of her mouth against his. The way she had looked at him afterward — not with desire, not with calculation — but with pure, exasperated fury that he had put himself in danger.

He wanted to see that look again.

He wanted to deserve it.

He turned from the window and pulled the bell rope for his valet. The man appeared within thirty seconds, his face carefully neutral despite the late hour.

“Have my carriage brought round at eight o’clock,” Henry said. “I have a call to make on Holling Street.”

“And your Grace’s attire for the morning call?”

Henry looked down at his plain coat. Then at the three shillings still gleaming on his desk.

“The blue coat. The Hessians. The gold watch fob and the signet ring.”

His valet blinked. The Duke of Keilder did not dress to impress. He dressed to dominate.

“Very good, your Grace.”

“And Saunders,” Henry added, his voice dropping. “Have my solicitor draw up a marriage contract before noon.”

The valet’s face remained neutral, but his eyes widened a fraction.

“Yes, your Grace.”

Henry picked up the three shillings and closed his fist around them. He did not sleep that night, though he lay in bed for the two remaining hours before dawn, staring at the canopy above him and rehearsing, over and over, the terms he would offer a woman who had every reason in the world to refuse him. He had negotiated with bankers, ministers, and men who held the fate of entire counties in their ledgers. He had never once, in all his years of ruthless calculation, been quite so afraid of an answer.