As it turned out, India cried from the moment the carriage entered the post road, all the way to London. “It’s all right, Peters,” she told Adelaide’s alarmed butler, upon her arrival back home. “It’s been a-a-a very trying day.”

What woman wouldn’t have fallen in love with Thorn? He was seductive and yet tender and sweet. He had genuinely listened to her, and created the India rubber band on her design. He was bawdy and rough and real, in a way that true gentlemen never were.

Even though he wasn’t a gentleman by birth, he had always been scrupulously honest. He hadn’t meant to sweep her off her feet. He had looked her in the eyes, more than once, and told her that their relationship was temporary, and that he planned to marry Lala.

A sob wrenched her chest. The stupid thing was that men had tried to tumble her for years. They’d assumed that since they were hiring a woman and paying a woman, bedding that woman came as part of the package.

She had failed herself. She had forgotten the safeguards she put in place years ago, the lessons she learned from her father and mother about life. About love.

Now she felt as if a vital organ had been gouged out of her. Who would have imagined that love could hurt like this?

She had to build a new life, one that wasn’t agonizingly painful.

One that didn’t have Thorn in it.

Chapter Thirty-five

Thorn kept poking at his feelings for India, the way one might poke a sore tooth. This raw possessiveness wasn’t something he ever thought to experience. Planned to experience.

He drove straight back from Piggleston, consumed the entire way by relief, and arrived at Starberry Court just before the noon hour. He needed answers.

“Where is my father?” he asked, cutting Fleming off before his butler could utter a word.

“His Grace is in the library. But, sir—”

“Not now, Fleming.” Thorn found the duke alone, sitting before a chessboard, no doubt studying some arcane stratagem. Villiers looked up as Thorn entered. Damn it, he looked completely unrepentant. In fact, he looked amused.

“What in the hell was that about?” Thorn said, keeping his voice controlled. There was no point in howling at the Duke of Villiers, as he knew from childhood experience. “You knew damn well that I didn’t care for Laetitia Rainsford. You sent me on a wild-goose chase.”

“You didn’t enjoy your trip to Piggleston?”

Thorn had learned—if not inherited—his deadly glare from Villiers; after a moment, the corners of the duke’s mouth curled up and he said, “As your father, I thought you could use a lesson in that most perplexing of emotions: love.”

“I already knew that I wanted to marry India before you drove me halfway to the next county,” Thorn retorted.

“Did you?”

The words hung in the air. It was true that Thorn had decided to ask for India’s hand in marriage. But he hadn’t understood just how much he felt for her until the darkest hour of the morning, when he’d realized what life would be like without her at his side.

It wasn’t a question of bedding her. She was his true north, his other half.

“You are my son,” the duke continued, his eyes softening. “I thought there was a good chance you’d inherited my idiocy. By the way, she turned down Lord Brody’s proposal of marriage last night.”

“How do you know that?” Thorn felt that muscle jumping in his jaw again.

“I kept him company while he drowned himself in a bottle of Cognac,” the duke said. “I don’t expect he’ll be down until well into the afternoon.”

“That doesn’t mean she’ll turn to me. Why would she accept my offer?” Thorn said savagely. “I’ve nothing to offer her that he hasn’t, and in truth, a great deal less.”

“She loves you,” his father said calmly. “Though the emotion won’t be enough on its own. Eleanor fell in love with me, but I had made so damn many mistakes by then that she wanted nothing to do with me.”

“I’m no duke,” Thorn said bleakly.

“It’s my distinct impression that you treated her like the bastard you are. Do you remember how I courted your stepmother?”

“You bought her a ring the size of a swallow’s egg, you put on a black coat, and you pretended to be your own cousin.”

The duke grinned. “I pretended to be a gentleman, which I am not, duke or no. You’ll have to do the same.”

“I don’t have a black coat.”

“Pretend to be a gentleman,” his father advised. “Tell her that she resembles a rose; make a formal proposal. But first go to Rundell & Bridge to buy a diamond, and tell them I sent you. She has returned to London, so you can (so to speak) kill two birds with one stone.”

“I don’t know if India is interested in diamonds.”

“What gemstone would she prefer?”

Thorn thought of India’s mother’s jewels, lost in the Thames. “Nothing I could buy for her. More to the point, like Eleanor, she can marry the highest in the land. You are the highest, which means your proposal and mine are hardly parallel.”

“She just turned down a duke’s heir,” Villiers observed. His eyes turned fierce and he said, “You are the highest in the land, Tobias. You have more brains and balls than any man in the peerage, and that woman knows it.”

Thorn smiled faintly. “You forgot to add that I’m your son.”

“All of which were inherited from me, naturally,” his father said with satisfaction.

Chapter Thirty-six

129 Maddox Street

London residence of Lady Adelaide Swift

and Lady Xenobia India St. Clair

By late afternoon India had her tears more or less under control. She would find a husband who didn’t constantly remind her about the “perfect” woman he planned to marry, but made it clear that she was that woman.

The only time she’d seen that sort of look in Thorn’s eyes was after Vander joined them in the country. Then she caught him watching her with a possessiveness that had thrilled her. But it hadn’t really had anything to do with her. It was about his rivalry with Vander.

Before she met Thorn, she had decided to find a man who would permit her to take charge of the household accounts. The idea of Thorn allowing her to run their life was enough to push a hollow laugh from her throat. She needed to marry a reasonable, measured man.

Thorn had identified the perfect trait for his spouse, and he hadn’t wavered from his opinion. He had chosen Lala because she was sweet and always would be.

Just because life hadn’t made her sweet didn’t mean that a man couldn’t love her. She would find a man who would love her just as she was. Neither of her most ardent suitors—Fitzroy and Nugent—would suit; they would be horrified if she lost her temper. Perhaps she should travel to the Continent. Weren’t Spanish women famous for having fiery tempers?

India was thinking about black-eyed Spanish men when the door opened and the butler ushered Thorn into her drawing room. She jumped to her feet as her heart threw itself into double time.

He bowed. “Good afternoon, Lady Xenobia.”

India took one look at his tousled dark hair and bruised eye and—absurdly—longing ignited in her very blood. There was no other man like him, one whose strength and intelligence swirled around him like a cloak, a complement to his bone-deep confidence. Though perhaps a better word was arrogance.