Confessions of a Royal Bridegroom(61)

CHAPTER Ten



Justine paused outside the door of Mr. Steele’s—Griffin’s—study, automatically smoothing down her skirts and then her hair before she knocked. Why she cared was a mystery. She was sure her soon-to-be husband didn’t give a fig about her appearance. After all, their marriage would be in name only, the reluctant parties forced into it by the inexorable march of circumstances. There was no need to pretend it was anything else, something she had every intention of reiterating to him in no uncertain terms.

As soon as she worked up the nerve to speak to him.

After that ghastly discussion with Dominic and Griffin earlier in the day, Justine had fled to her bedroom. She’d locked herself inside and sunk, trembling, onto the bed, trying to sort out the ruin of the life she’d so carefully built these last few years. It had taken a great deal of effort and will to finally smooth out the rough contours of her existence, and that included defying the most powerful member of her family, her uncle, Viscount Curtis. But it had all been worth it. After a lifetime of dramatic uncertainty in her father’s household, Justine had finally found the peace she’d always craved in the serenely old-fashioned household of Lady Belgrave. She’d fought hard for that life, and she cherished every moment of it.


But now, with one necessary but reckless action on her part—and didn’t that just sound like her father—Justine had blown it all up. For the foreseeable future, she was tied to one of the most notorious men in England. Griffin Steele led anything but a quiet, respectable life, so she couldn’t have done a better job of finding her exact opposite.

She sighed and pressed her fingertips against the sore spots where her jaw hinged. Her face felt like a gigantic toothache, the result of clenching her teeth for hours as waves of panic rolled through her. Her molars would soon be ground down to stubs.

As she reluctantly raised her hand to knock on the oak door, Griffin’s voice sounded from inside his office. “Justine, stop loitering out there in the hallway like an eavesdropping maid and come in.”

Biting back a gasp, she pressed a hand to her chest, right over her thudding heart. He’d simply startled her, that’s all. She most certainly was not responding to the inherent sensuality of his drawling tones.

Courage, Justine. Face the problem head-on, and everything will be fine.

She blinked at the quiet words filtering through her mind. It was as though her father were standing beside her, supporting her. So many times in the past, when she’d wanted to fade into the background or avoid some unpleasant task, he’d gently but implacably urged her to confront whatever troubled her.

“No point in avoiding it, my dear,” he would say with a wry smile. “Most times, the only way to manage a problem is to go directly through it. And the source of your problem, whoever it is, will respect you all the more for standing up to him.”

More than once, she’d found that to be the case.

“Justine, do I have to come out there and get you, or have you finished running through every problem that comes into your pretty little head?”

Drat.

Griffin was so blasted perceptive. Why couldn’t he be as thick-headed as most other men, never knowing how a woman truly thought? And how in heaven’s name had he heard her in the first place? She wore soft slippers and she knew she hadn’t made any noise coming down the hall. But Griffin seemed to have the uncanny and annoying ability to sense everything that was happening in his domain.

Composing her face into serene lines, she opened the door and stepped into the room, determined to exert the upper hand in the ensuing conversation. There was much they needed to discuss, and much more she needed to understand.