“Perhaps it would be best if we did not spend more time getting to know one another. Once we are wed, it may perhaps be best for us to remain out of one another’s way.”
“Excellent,” he replied, and her eyes showed only the faintest hint of surprise at his immediate agreement. “This shall be a marriage in name only. There will be very few occasions in which I shall need you to accompany me or to present you as my wife. Other than that, you shall be allowed to roam about the house as you wish. Any and all changes made to my household must be approved first by myself or my housekeeper, Miss Jenkins.”
Once again, Lady Diana looked exceedingly frustrated, though she was refraining from responding now. Instead, she simply stared at him with a fiery expression that he was certain would cause a lesser man to quake in his boots.
“I shall expect everything to be completed within one week’s time for the wedding.”
The Duke strode out of the room just as purposefully as he had entered it, and it was all Diana could do not to pick up the lamp from the side table and throw it at him.
“Oh! The nerve of that man!” she exclaimed to Margaret, her lady’s maid, as the front door closed, marking his departure from the house.
“He is certainly… a trying soul,” Margaret acknowledged.
Diana couldn’t help but laugh slightly at that. “You may attempt to be polite all you like, Margaret, but the man is far more than‘trying.’ Can you imagine, not a single event or ball? And I shall be mistress of the house in name only. To have to ask permission to run the household… the very idea…”
She was practically fuming at the very thought of everything that he had just said and the way that he had stared at her. Like she was some child that he was bored with.
“You will need to make the best of it, My Lady,” Margaret replied. “He will be your husband, after all.”
“Yes, my husband. In name only. In truth, I shall be little more than a servant without even a task to keep me occupied. Why on earth would he look for a wife if he does not wish her to run the household or host events?”
“Diana?” a voice suddenly called from the hallway.
Diana tried to draw in a deep breath and calm her racing heart. It would not do to let the rest of the family know everything that had transpired here.
“There you are, Dear,” her mother said, breezing into the drawing room as she always did, Diana’s sisters alongside her. “We were told that the Duke was just here. What news did he have of the wedding?”
“It shall take place in one week,” Diana replied briskly, attempting to maintain as polite a tone as she could manage at the moment.
Though she needn’t have bothered. Short of shaking her mother, there was likely nothing she could do or say that would let the woman know that something was the matter with her eldest daughter.
“Wonderful! It will be excellent to see one of our girls married off.”
The Countess seemed proud. Happy. And Diana wished that she could feel the same. But she had never wanted a husband.
As her friends got married one after the other, she quickly realized that what they had was not for her. Even those who had been lucky in their husbands, she did not envy.
Beth who had married a man of her own age who seemed to have a gentle temperament.
And Anne who had married a man who actually seemed to care somewhat for her.
And now, to be forced not only to wed but to wed a man such as the Duke of Cardan, a man who was at every turn trying and cold, it was worse than anything she could have imagined.
When the Countess had left, the other girls turned to Diana, Marigold’s expression far more shrewd than any of the others.
“What truly happened, Diana?”
“Nothing that you need to worry about,” Diana replied. “There is a great deal that must be done to prepare for the wedding, and I will not have us all moping about when there are plans to be made.”
The last thing she wanted to do was plan her wedding to the Duke, but there was nothing to be done about it now. And so she tried to be as brave and stalwart as possible, even though her sisters seemed to sense that things were not all as they seemed.
“A wedding in only a week, it does not give you much time to sort things out,” Valery declared. “How could he possibly expect us to be ready in so short a period?”
“It shall be sufficient for what we need,” Diana replied. “And I am sure it shall be more than sufficient for anything that he would wish for.”
If it were up to the Duke, they would no doubt have gone before the priest that very day to be wed and get it over with. In fact, Diana was almost surprised that he had not suggested such a thing and had instead given her an entire week to plan the most important event of her life. And apparently, the last event of her life.
By the time she was able to break away from her sisters and return to her own room, she’d had enough of pretending that things were alright. The Duke had proven himself yet again to be an insufferable man who cared not for her wishes and she had no notion of just what her life would become. It was just her and Margaret again, and as Margaret already knew everything …
