I were. The thought wasn’t a new one—he had it any time someone said, “Your Grace,” but now he had to temper that—ha!—with the thought that if he weren’t the duke that would mean someone else was. Someone who was even less capable than he of managing a temper.
“Pardon, then. What did you say?”
She huffed an exasperated breath. “I was saying that there don’t seem to be many suitable candidates here. I would expect the Duchess of Malvern to be impeccable in breeding, education, manners, and appearance.”
And how do you expect that paragon of perfection to agree to marry me? I might be a duke, but I am also a sullen, scowling man who doesn’t care for Society’s trappings. Never mind that if she was that excellent a specimen he would run the risk of falling in love with her, and that he could not do.
Perhaps he could find a lady who abhorred brandy, enjoyed making polite conversation, and insisted that gentlemen be garbed as gentlemen at all times. His ideal match.
“I will review Debrett’s, and compile a list.”
The promise felt like a threat. His future was being as tightly squeezed as his neck in the hellcloth.
He swallowed all that anger, as he always did. Unless it was a justified reprisal. Or he’d lost control. That innocent chair. “Good,” he replied in a tight voice.
“We will have you married off and with children in no time,” she said determinedly.
He grunted.
He needed to go punch something else right now. Something or someone that deserved it.
Or Finan.
“Instead of taking pokes at me with your slow fist, why don’t you just tell your grandmother you refuse to marry?”
Nash shook his head in regret.
The two men were in Nash’s sparring room, a room that had once been purposed as a guest bedroom, but since Nash never invited anybody but Sebastian and Thaddeus over, he had decided to make the room useful. He’d had the furniture removed, the rugs stored, and all the paintings taken down from the walls. He’d put in special flooring to muffle the sound of feet, and put extra padding on the walls to muffle the sound of the blows.
The room held only a few pieces of furniture now: a chest of drawers where the linens for wrapping fists were stored, a small sturdy table that held a pitcher of water and a few glasses, and two mismatched chairs for when the opponents needed a rest.
Nash hadn’t even needed to tell Finan what he wanted; as soon as his valet saw his face, he’d risen from his chair and gone to his room to change. Nash went to his own bedroom and quickly stripped off his evening wear, giving an especially disdainful look as he tore off the hellcloth, dropping it onto the ground and deliberately stepping on it.
He knew he’d have to go out again wearing the same blasted outfit, but at least this particular hellcloth would never serve its hellish purpose again.
“I can’t tell her I won’t marry because I have to marry.” Nash punctuated his words with quick feints toward Finan, who dodged them easily. There was a reason that sparring with Finan was so satisfying. Nash had yet to meet an opponent who could best him, but Finan was the closest he had come.
That was how they had met, actually—Nash had come upon Finan in an unequal battle, there having apparently been a dispute about politics, and Nash didn’t think three against one was a fair fight. Three against two, however, when one of the two was Nash and the other one was Finan, meant that the two would win immediately.
“And that is because—?” Finan asked, twisting to avoid a direct hit.
Nash grunted.
“That’s not an answer,” Finan replied, not sounding out of breath at all. Disappointing.
Nash had shared some of his past with his friend, but Finan didn’t know the whole of it. Nor did he know about Nash’s heir. So he’d have to get over his usual reticence and actually talk.
He’d much rather punch.
He didn’t speak, but kept sparring, the thoughts building up inside his brain until he felt as though he were going to burst—those were the only times he found he actually wanted to talk, when not talking would be more painful than the alternative.
“We’re done,” he said at last, backing away from Finan’s upraised fists. “Sit down, and I’ll tell you.”
“Took you long enough,” Finan grumbled, his hair wet with sweat, his shirt sticking to his skin.
Nash quickly unwrapped the linen from his