Kate trudged into her Egyptian themed parlor and threw herself into the carved wooden chair across from her Aunt Havens.

The sun streamed merrily through the tall, rectangular windows on this beautiful June day, yet Kate gazed about her favorite room of the townhouse without her usual joy and satisfaction.

This was her townhouse. Her parlor. Her carefully themed rooms, decorated with minute accuracy down to the hue of the paint and the stitching on the chair cushions.

It had taken Kate her entire adult life to coax her Mayfair townhouse from an empty skeleton into a home she could be proud of. Each room a living replica of a moment in history. Each item purchased using the modest sum she’d inherited when her parents had died far too young.

Not only would she be expected to leave it all behind after the wedding—it wouldn’t even belong to her anymore.

As soon as the marriage contract was signed and the ceremony completed, everything Kate had dedicated her purposefully spinsterish life to building would immediately become sole property of the Duke of Ravenwood.

She wished she’d thrown the bucket at him on purpose.

“How can you sit there and embroider on a day like this?” she groused to her aunt.

Kate frowned. Perhaps Aunt Havens had the right of it. Heaven knew what she’d be “allowed” to do once they were under Ravenwood’s thumb. This might be her last chance to run out and spend every penny she owned.

Not that she would. Ravenwood might not even let her keep her purchases. How was Kate to know what a duke might do? Especially a duke as notoriously cold and severe as Ravenwood. She drew in a shaky breath. Selling off her treasures would break her heart worse than never owning them in the first place.

Aunt Havens lowered her embroidery to her lap and peered at Kate. “Is he a nice man? Might he make you happy?”

Kate’s shoulders sagged as some of the tension seeped from them. Aunt Havens was perfectly herself today, thank God. Kate needed her.

The two of them had been through so much. They’d lost homes, they’d lost all their loved ones, but they’d never lost each other.

Since the day Kate had been orphaned, she had confided all her fears and secrets to her aunt. She wouldn’t be able to survive the upcoming changes without her aunt’s advice, support, and unconditional love. Together, they could get through anything.

Including this.

“He’s…respectable,” she hedged in response to her aunt’s question. Ravenwood was also handsome and self-righteous and proper and maddening. He turned her thoughts upside-down. “Or at least he was respectable, until my cousin’s buffoonery made everyone jump to completely unfounded conclusions.”

Aunt Havens tilted her head. “Lambley merely wished to protect you.”

“I know.” Kate leaned her head back against the chair and threw her arm over her eyes.

For all his rakish ways, Lambley would choose dueling pistols at dawn over the thought of someone taking advantage of his innocent cousin Kate.

And that was the jest, wasn’t it? She was innocent in that sense. The moment with Ravenwood had been disappointingly innocent. She was a “fallen” woman who had never even been kissed. And was too terrified to bear children, for fear of losing them. Even for a husband who looked like Adonis.

She pulled herself up into a seated position. “I cannot be a duchess, Aunt. I don’t want a husband at all.”

Aunt Havens frowned. “You have no choice.”

“We’ll make each other miserable,” Kate insisted. The quickening of her pulse meant nothing. She could not possibly marry him, for she couldn’t perform any of her wifely duties. “He’ll expect a sweet, proper, docile wife. I’m none of those things.”

“Then you’ll have to change. He’s a duke. He has a right to expect those qualities.”

Aunt Havens was right. Of course she was right. But Kate couldn’t help a stab of resentment that becoming a duchess meant she had to stop being Kate.

“Why can’t I expect things, too?” Kate’s fingers clenched in frustration. Pricks of heat stung her eyes.

“You ought not to worry. He will take care of you.” Aunt Havens picked up her embroidery. “It is his responsibility to provide for you in every way, from this day forward. Think of all the resources you’ll have.”

“I don’t want his money. I have my own money.” Or at least she used to. Very soon, even her museum would belong to her husband. Who would she be then? “I don’t need anything from him, and I’d prefer he didn’t require anything of me. I’d rather live in infamy than marry a man who only wants to change me.”

Aunt Havens didn’t respond.

Kate frowned. It wasn’t unusual for her aunt to sit in silence if she felt Kate was simply being dramatic, but the threat of not following through with the wedding should have warranted some sort of reply.

A soft snore escaped Aunt Havens’ mouth.

Indecision paralyzed Kate. This was the fifth time in as many months that Aunt Havens had fallen asleep during daylight hours, right in the middle of doing something else.

Part of her wanted to let her aunt sleep. The other, more frightened part of her wanted to shake her aunt awake and make her promise she wasn’t getting ill. Or growing old. Or anything else that might take her away from Kate.

Cold terror gripped her heart.

What if Ravenwood didn’t want some doddering aunt wandering about his ducal estate? He hadn’t even wanted Kate. He certainly wouldn’t be pleased to discover he’d gained not one, but two unwanted dependents. What if he decided to execute his husbandly right to send Aunt Havens to some far off asylum and Kate never saw her again?

Dizziness assailed her. She rushed over to her aunt and pulled her into her arms. Aunt Havens was Kate’s heart, her family, her lifeline. She couldn’t lose her. She wouldn’t.

“Miss Ross?” Marr, Kate’s butler, stepped into the parlor. “You have a gentleman caller. Shall I show him in?”

Kate glanced up at her butler and swallowed the lump in her throat. “Show him in, please.”

She placed a blanket about Aunt Havens’ shoulders and sat next to her, rather than across from her. Asleep or not, they would present a united front against Ravenwood. Sort of. She took a deep breath to rally her courage.

The Duke of Ravenwood stepped into the parlor looking even more devastatingly handsome than he’d done the night before. His chestnut curls and long-lashed green eyes highlighted without softening his unsmiling lips and regal bearing.

She stood as he sketched a courtly bow, and responded with as pretty a curtsey as she could muster. She would be calm. He hadn’t hoped for this turn of events any more than she had. Churlishness would help neither of them. They would have to make the best of it.

“Have you seen the scandal sheets?” she asked.

He took a seat on the chair opposite. “I don’t need to.”

Kate had felt the same way. For the first time in her life, she had tossed them into the fire without opening them.

Normally, she loved to read each column. To spy her name, or some unmistakable allusion to her, amongst their mindless pages.

Today was different. She pressed her lips together. The rest of her life would be different.

Ravenwood settled back in his chair. He had yet to remark upon their chaperone’s gentle snores, despite the presence of needlework in her liver spotted hands.

Kate wasn’t certain if his failure to acknowledge Aunt Havens made him exceptionally rude, or unexpectedly perceptive. It was not something she wished to talk about. Aunt Havens was just tired. She was going to be fine.

Ravenwood leaned forward. “Do you have a preference as to which church does the reading of the banns?”

He wanted banns?

She stared at him uncomprehendingly. “You’re a duke. Can’t you get a special license?”

“Of course. But our betrothal has been marked with enough ignominy. Banns are what most couples do. A special license is just something else for the gossips to talk about.”

“We’re not most couples,” she said, without heat. Nothing about this was normal.

He knew that. Neither of them had wanted this. He was trying to make it easier. She tilted her head to consider him. Despite the image he projected, he wasn’t an unfeeling automaton. She’d learned that last night when he’d caught her in his arms. He was trying to protect her again now.

His face was impassive. “You object to banns?”

She objected to marrying anyone. But thanks to the compromise, her wishes no longer mattered. She bit her lip. “I don’t see the point to prolonging the inevitable. We have to wed. A special license is the most expedient solution. Banns won’t make anyone believe we’ve fallen in love.”

For the second time in their acquaintance, a smile twisted the Duke of Ravenwood’s lips.

This time, it did not reach his eyes.

“Then there’s no sense playacting.” He drew a small journal from an inner coat pocket and scanned its pages. “Does one week from today fit your schedule? Ten o’clock should do. Ravenwood House has a parlor suitable for a small proceeding, if you’d rather not have the ceremony in a church.”

Kate didn’t have to check her calendar. She rarely scheduled anything before noon.

“Ten o’clock,” she forced herself to agree. Now that she’d talked him out of banns, their impending wedding seemed all the more real. She wrapped her arms about herself. “I suppose I should bring my clothing and other personal items with me?”

He inclined his head. “You can ship ahead anything you like. I have commissioned a new armoire, expressly for your use. It is a husband’s duty to provide a wedding gift for his wife.”

An armoire. She fought to stay calm. She had an armoire of her own. An entire home full of things that mattered. She lifted a palm toward her papyri and painted vases. “As for the rest of my things?”

He drew back slightly. “You would wish to put these…items on display at Ravenwood House?”

She curled her fingers into fists. Of course her collection would not be welcome.

“You would prefer me to hold onto my townhouse and keep them here?” she returned archly.

Something shifted in his eyes. “You may keep your townhouse, Miss Ross. It will remain yours in every way that matters.”

No, it would not. She smiled through clenched teeth. Although it was not his fault, he could not deny the truth.

Nothing would be hers anymore, in any way that mattered. She had spent years building a stable life for herself by investing her modest inheritance in the four percents and her beloved museum. Now, none of that mattered.

One week from today, she would become the Duke of Ravenwood’s property.