Page 25 of Kathryn

Lady Kathryn went from mortified to mulish in the blink of an eye. “How many lovers have you had?”

He ignored her impertinent question. “How many?” he repeated icily.

She held his gaze for a long moment before wavering and once again lowering her gaze. “One.”

“What is his name?”

This time when she looked up, her eyes blazed. “I refuse to tell you about such a—a private matter.”

Gerrit’s fury licked across his skin like flames, but he kept his voice low and level. “I belong to a number of clubs, Lady Kathryn. Although I do not visit them with any frequency, I would prefer to know who your lover is rather than be forced to wonder and guess at his identity every time I look another man in the face.”

“And will you tell me all the names of your lovers, as well?”

Gerrit abruptly leaned toward her and was pleased when she recoiled from whatever she saw on his face. “I have taken no lovers from among the ton so you will not have to worry about encountering them,” he hissed, holding her gaze. “Now. I would have your lover’s name, my lady.”

“He is nobody you know.”

“How can you be so sure of that?”

“Because he is a footman,” she retorted, her face a flame.

Nausea rose within him as if he’d been kicked in the ballocks. That he—Gerrit Van Draak—would likely be forced to marry a woman who fucked her servants was so ironic that he almost laughed.

If there was one attitude that he loathed, it was the predatory behavior so many of his peers exhibited toward their social subordinates. And now, evidently, he was going to marry one of that ilk.

“When did you last fornicate with this man?”

Her jaw dropped at the word fornicate, but she recovered quickly and fixed him with a look of pure loathing. Was she going to tell him to go to hell? What would Gerrit do if she refused to answer? Would he do the honorable thing and accept another man’s castoff? Would he endure a marriage to yet another woman who hated him and bedded every man in sight whenever his back was turned?

The voice of Gerrit’s long-dead father filled his mind, the words coming back to him from almost twenty years ago, the night that Gerrit first learned he was to wed Christina.

It does not matter that you have never met her. You are like me, Gerrit; you are incapable of that emotion other men call love. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can get on with the business of marriage as it will be—not as others tell you it should be. And the sooner Christina is made aware of the situation, the better it will be for both of you. Her duty is to give you an heir. Once she does that, both of you will be free to live your own lives free of one another. It is what I did with your mother, and it will have to be the same with any woman you take to wife. Tell her your intentions in plain words and tell it to her before she can develop unreasonable expectations of you.

Gerrit experienced a nasty niggling in his belly as he recalled his sire’s unpalatable but undeniably accurate advice. Advice that he had rejected at the time, naively hoping he could find happiness with Christina, despite his father’s warning.

He knew now, after the disaster of his first marriage, that the old duke had been painfully astute with his advice. Gerrit was far too ugly, awkward, and strange for any woman to love, or even like, so he should take what he could get—hopefully an heir this time—and look for physical pleasure with a woman who was paid to welcome him into her bed.

But even as he opened his mouth to give his prospective wife carte blanche to copulate with whomever she wished, a strange sensation joined the anger simmering inside him and it took him a long moment to identify it. Good God… Was that jealousy he felt?

He was not immune to the unpleasant emotion—he was as human as the next man, despite a common consensus to the contrary—but it was not a feeling he’d experienced since the early days of his first marriage. That had been a natural reaction, albeit short-lived.

But why in the hell would he be jealous of Lady Kathryn Bellamy, a woman he did not know and did not want to marry?

The illogical reaction distracted him for a moment, and he could only stare, too perplexed by his disorganized thoughts to speak. For reasons beyond his ken, the thought of a marriage of convenience rankled, and rankled badly. It made no sense. Less than a day ago he had been resolved to enter that exact sort of union with Lady Mariska. So, why would—

“More than five years have passed, so you needn’t fear I am with child.”

Gerrit blinked, needing a moment to recall what she meant.

“I am speaking the truth,” she said, evidently mistaking his confusion for suspicion.

Five years ago? Chatham had said she was two-and-twenty, which would mean she’d been scarcely more than a girl when she’d bedded her footman. And there had been no other man since?

Why did he find that so hard to believe? After all, she had been the one to mastermind this blasted kissing contest.

“Nobody else in five years,” he repeated skeptically.

“Yes. That is the truth,” she said through gritted teeth.