The Duke Married Her for Money and Planned to Keep His Distance—But Six Hours After Their Wedding, His “Gentle” Bride Fought Three Armed Highwaymen to Protect Him, and He Realized He Could No Longer Imagine a Life Without Her

PART 1

Duke Gareth Rookmir was six hours into his marriage before he began to seriously consider what he had done wrong.

He sat in the carriage beside his new wife. She was eating a sugared plum. It was her third that day.

The first had been at the chapel, where he had stood beside Lady Varity Crowley and answered every vow clearly, without stumbling once. The vicar lost his place twice. Both times, a small dimple appeared near Varity’s mouth. Gareth had not looked. He had thought himself rather impressive.

The second had been at the wedding breakfast. Varity had eaten one sugared plum, thanked every aunt, and remembered every servant’s name after hearing it once. She had sat there, gentle and quiet, looking as harmless as a dove placed in a bank vault.

Now she was eating another plum.

Gareth distrusted harmless people. They were usually sent by dangerous ones.

Varity set the plum stone aside and looked up at him.

“What are you thinking?”

Gareth looked out the window. “I’m thinking about my father.”

Varity nodded. “Oh, I’m also thinking about your father.”

Gareth frowned. “Truly?”

“Truly.” Varity smoothed one glove on her knee and spoke slowly. “I’m wondering how he convinced my father to sign that settlement. My father usually demands three bloodline certificates before buying a horse.”

Gareth glanced at her. Clear hazel eyes. Not timid. Not pleading. Observant. She was studying him the way one studied a thing one had just purchased, and had not yet decided whether to return.

“You believe I married you for your title?”

Varity met his gaze. “Of course you do. But you married me for my father’s money. So we are even.”

The coachman coughed outside. Gareth was silent for a moment.

“You are honest.”

“Honesty saves time.” Varity smoothed her other glove. “Also, your aunt cried into the wedding cake. My mother told me to smile as if I had not been sold with ribbons. The vicar called you George twice. And I’m hungry again.”

Gareth turned his head. “You just ate a plum.”

“A plum is not dinner.”

Gareth almost smiled. Almost. He looked away out the window.

“You are free to arrange your own household. Rookmir Hall is large enough for distance.”

Varity raised one eyebrow. “How romantic.”

“I did not offer romance.”

“I noticed.” There was no injury in her voice, and no anger. That, somehow, annoyed him more. He had prepared for tears, or resentment, or some delicate accusation. Instead, Varity only looked at him like a woman waiting for a kettle to boil.

“I will not interfere with your life,” Gareth said.

“That may be difficult.”

“Why?”

“We are married.”

“Legally, yes.”

Varity raised one finger, serious as an accountant. “Socially. Publicly. Inconveniently. And with cake.”

Gareth stared at her. “Cake does not create intimacy.”

“No, but it creates witnesses.”

Gareth had not yet answered when the carriage stopped. Not slowed. Stopped.

His hand went to the door strap. “Stay inside.”

Varity’s brows lifted. “That sounded practiced.”

“Stay inside,” he repeated.

Outside, a man shouted. The coachman cursed. Horses stamped. Another voice laughed from the hedge.

Gareth opened the door before the footman could. Three men stood in the lane. Not beggars. Not drunkards. Hired muscle. One carried a cudgel. One held the horses. One stood near the ditch with a pistol aimed badly but confidently.

“Your Grace,” the pistol man called. “Out, if you please.”

Gareth stepped down. Rainwater soaked his wedding shoes. “You have chosen a poor afternoon for stupidity.”

“We was paid for the afternoon,” said the cudgel man.

Gareth’s jaw tightened. Paid. Of course. He had enemies enough to fill another carriage — border tenants angry over evictions his father had ordered, creditors disappointed by his refusal to sell village land, cousins who preferred him dead and the estate divided. He had assumed marriage would give him something new to gossip about. Not a schedule for assault.

“Take the purse,” Gareth said. “Then leave.”

The pistol man grinned. “Not here for a purse.”

The footman lunged. The cudgel struck him across the shoulder. Gareth moved then — caught the cudgel man’s wrist, turned, drove him into the carriage wheel. The second man released the horses and came at Gareth from the side. The pistol lifted.

The carriage door opened.

“I did say stay inside,” Gareth snapped.

“Yes,” said Varity. “It was a poor suggestion.”

She stepped down holding her parasol. Pale blue, to match her gown. A carved handle. A silk canopy. No visible reason to terrify anyone.

The pistol man laughed.

Varity smiled. It was a gentle smile.

Then she struck him in the wrist with the parasol handle. The pistol fired into the ditch. Birds exploded from the hedge. Before the man could shout, Varity hooked the parasol behind his knee and pulled. He fell backward into the mud with the expression of a man betrayed by weather and marriage.

The second thug stared. That was his mistake. Varity stepped under his arm, drove her elbow into his stomach, and used his own weight to send him over the milestone. He landed with a grunt, hat rolling into a puddle.

The cudgel man recovered and charged. Gareth reached for him. Varity was faster. She withdrew a hat pin from her bonnet and held it two inches from the man’s nose.

“Sir,” she said pleasantly, “I am newly married, underfed, and wearing satin shoes and mud. Do not test the mercy of a bride.”

The man stopped. Gareth stopped. The coachman stopped swearing halfway through a word.

The pistol man groaned from the ditch. “She broke me hand.”

“I bruised it,” Varity corrected. “Breaking requires commitment.”

The cudgel man lowered his weapon. “Drop it,” she said. He dropped it. “Now apologize to His Grace’s footman.”

“What?”

Varity’s hat pin did not move.

The man swallowed. “Sorry. With feeling.” He turned to the footman, clutching his shoulder. “Sorry, mate.”

The footman blinked. “Accepted.”

Gareth looked at his bride. She looked back. A streak of mud marked her hand. One curl had escaped her bonnet. Her parasol was bent. Her expression remained sweet enough to serve with tea.

“You,” Gareth said, “can fight a little.”

The coachman made a strangled sound.

That was how Gareth Rookmir arrived at his ancestral home — one bruised footman, three captured thugs tied with carriage straps, and a wife everyone had described as gentle.

Rookmir Hall received them badly. The housekeeper, Mrs. Pennock, came down the steps expecting a formal arrival. She found mud, rope, blood on Gareth’s cuff, and the new Duchess holding a pistol by two fingers, as if it were a dead mouse.

“Your Grace?” Mrs. Pennock said faintly.

“Which one?” Varity asked.

Mrs. Pennock’s eyes widened. Gareth covered his mouth with one hand. Varity looked innocent. “I mean,” she said. “There are two now.”

The butler made a sound of spiritual injury. Gareth handed him the pistol.

“Lock that away.”