Page 3 of Stolen and Seduced By the Duke

Bernard gave a weak smile. "We searched for every possible solution."

"To what?"

"Every loophole in the contract."

"Loophole? What contract?" she demanded, her voice suddenly sharper. "What on earth are you talking about?"

She looked from the fireplace to the windows and back again, as though the answer might be written upon the wallpaper.

Her mind began racing, producing possibilities with such speed that she scarcely had time to reject one before another appeared.

Has my father sold the house? Has Iris and Camelia secretly decided to become pirates? Has some dreadful relative discovered a hidden debt?

She almost wished it were pirates; at least pirates possessed the decency to announce themselves.

Bernard looked down at his hands. "Margaret, I am sorry."

She went still.

"I should have told you years ago," he continued quietly. "But I hoped the matter might somehow disappear. Your sisters have tried to help me, and we have searched through the old papers, consulted solicitors, examined every clause of the agreement, but there is no loophole."

Margaret's heart began to pound. "What agreement?"

Bernard raised his eyes to hers, and the sorrow in them made her stomach twist.

"The marriage contract."

For a moment, Margaret simply stared.

"Marriage…?" she asked again, though she already knew the answer could not possibly be anything good.

"Your grandfather made an agreement with Lord Harrowby's father many years ago," Bernard said. "You were promised in marriage."

Margaret's mouth fell open.

"Promised?" she repeated. "As one promises a horse to a neighbor?"

"Margaret…"

"No, Papa, I should like to understand precisely what sort of horse I have apparently become."

Bernard's face tightened with guilt. "I am sorry that we failed you again."

Again?

That word hurt more than she expected.

She had spent years watching Iris and Camelia marry while she remained behind, wondering whether there was something fundamentally lacking in her. She had told herself she did not care, made jokes whenever another season passed without a proposal, and pretended that being unchosen was a matter of preference rather than pain.

Now she discovered that there had been a man waiting in the shadows all along, not because he loved her, not because he had chosen her, but because a piece of parchment had decided her future before she had even been born.

"Who?" she whispered.

Bernard hesitated. "Lord Geoffrey Harrowby."

Margaret frowned. The name was unfamiliar, though something about her father's expression made her dislike it immediately.

Then Bernard delivered the final blow. "He has been released from prison."