The Duke was standing in the middle of the room, his hands in his pockets, his head tilted to one side. It was a relaxed, casual pose, and yet the way he looked at her was anything but casual. The deep midnight of his eyes burned and he radiated a subtle, sensual energy that made the air around him crackle. 

He looked like a man who’d never heard the word ‘no’ in all his life. Unluckily for him, ‘no’ was the only word she had.

“There's no reason why I should stay,” Anna clasped her shaking hands together in an effort to still them. “I’m not marrying you.”

His gaze flickered, his mouth curving slightly, and she had the disturbing thought that far from putting him off, her insistence was only inciting him further.
“But you haven’t heard my proposal yet,” he said mildly. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“I don’t need to hear it. I already know that my answer will be no.”

“Of course. But you can hardly tell your father that you heard me out when you haven’t, in fact, heard me out…. Anna.” 



A LADY FOR A DUKE

“So I’ve heard.” Anna clasped her hands together to stop them from fidgeting. “Again, nothing that would make me afraid of you. I do wonder, though, why you haven’t answered my question. You’re marrying because of a will, so why do you need a wedding when a quick ceremony in a register office would do the trick?” 


“An interesting question.” Cedric was very still, his lean, powerful body perfectly at rest, which somehow relaxed her, easing her urge to fidget. “The fact is, I’m a very busy man. I work hard and then I play hard, and in the past that hasn’t left a lot of time for other things. I hadn’t thought a family would be important to me, but I admit that after my father died, that changed. I am the only Blackwood left, and so I want a son to carry on after me.” Something she didn’t understand shifted in his eyes. “Would you really blame me if I wanted wedding pictures of his parents to show him when he got older?” 


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