Then she was standing across from the Duke, and he was looking down at her, his expression impenetrable.
At last, she found her voice. “Please…” she whispered. “Don’t do this.”
“This is happening whether you like it or not,” the Duke muttered, as the organ music swelled around them. “You might as well not irreversibly embarrass yourself by trying anything foolish.”
Tears burned in her eyes as the organ music stopped and the pastor began to speak, but behind her anger and fear, there was something else burning: a fierce and unquenchable determination she had never felt before in all her days.
And as she repeated her vows of “I do” to the pastor, to the Duke, to all their witnesses, she made herself another vow: never again would she let others make decisions for her. From now on, she wouldn’t let herself avoid conflict to keep the peace, and more importantly, she would never again let anyone control her.
Even her new husband.
Chapter Four
“What did you do that for?” Lady Emery Abaddon snarled the moment Lucien shut the door of the carriage behind him. “You have ruined my entire life!”
As Lucien blinked and sat back in his seat, staring across to where Lady Emery sat, her face a mask of fury and hatred, he had to remind himself that her name wasn’t Lady Emery Abaddon anymore. Nor was it Lady Emery Grove as it would have been had she married his brother as she was supposed to.
It was Her Grace, Duchess of Dredford.
And although he didn’t show it, he was just as unhappy about that as she was.
“Calm yourself,” he said coolly, folding his hands in his lap. “You should be thanking me for saving your reputation, not berating me with foolish, childish claims that I have ruined your life.”
“Youhaveruined my life!” she shouted, a flush of scarlet coming to her cheeks. This, he knew, was the flush of anger.
In all his life, he had never seen a woman as angry as she was now, and if he hadn’t been working hard to keep himself cool and collected, he might have been a bit taken aback by the force of her passion.
“And for what?! You don’t want to marry me. You don’t even know me! In all the years we have known each other we have barely interacted, barely even spoken. And now you have forced me to become your wife? Tell me, do you want to be miserable, Your Grace, with a wife you do not love, respect, or even know?”
Lucien didn’t answer. Instead, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the note he’d found on Henry’s nightstand. Without a word, he shoved it at her, and she took it.
“I found this on his dressing table,” he said. “And next to it, I found a letter from you, as well. Yours was addressed to him, but his was written to me. In it, he states the same insanity that your letter does, that he does not love you and that he does not wish to marry a woman he sees more as a sister than a wife.
“Not only that, but he goes on to express the delusional wish that his marriage be like our parents’, a so-called ‘love match’, although I cannot know what Henry thinks our parents’ love match looked like, seeing as how he was still very young when they died.”
“What is wrong with him desiring a love match?” His wife demanded, crossing her arms over her chest. “I wished for a love match as well! Doesn’t anyone with a heart want to spend their life with someone they love?”
“Noteveryone wants a love match,” Lucien corrected, trying his hardest to keep his voice level and cool. “In fact, what I like most about being a member of the aristocracy is that we have discovered the key to a good, healthy marriage is tonotmarry for love, but to combine assets and find long term companionship with someone of a similar upbringing and values. Marriage is not about love, it is about the practicality of raising children and continuing on one’s family line.”
His wife stared at him, her mouth slightly ajar. “You can’t mean that. You sound absolutely heartless.”
“I’m not heartless,” he snorted. “I’m strategic. I grew up in a home with parents who’d had a love match, parents who were madly in love, and believe me, it is not all it is promised to be.”
This seemed to pique her interest, and she tilted her head to one side curiously.
“What do you mean? Henry never said anything of the sort. He only ever had good things to say about your parents’ relationship, how different it was from most marriages in theton, how much hope it gave him.”
“Well, Henry was eight when they died, so he isn’t exactly a reliable witness,” Lucien said dismissively. “Most of his‘memories’ of our parents are reconstructions of events he heard in story form from friends, relatives, and servants.”
This made Emery pause--am I supposed to call her Emery? Duchess? Wife?He wasn’t entirely sure.She was his wife, after all, but he barely knew the girl and Emery felt a bit too informal.
“Well then you must tell me the truth,” she said, sitting back against her seat and staring at him with a challenge in her eyes. “What was so damaging about having parents who loved one another?”
Lucien was taken aback. No one had ever asked him directly about his parents’ relationship and what it had done to him, and the forthrightness of his wife’s question startled him. Most ladies of thetonwere too polite to ask personal questions, and if they did, they did so in a roundabout way that wouldn’t make it seem as if they were being nosey or intrusive.
She may have grown up a lady, but she never spent a Season in London, learning first hand all the subtle rules of propriety. That’s why she’s so bold and unscrupulous.
Well, he didn’t have to answer her. The last thing he wanted to do was go into his private feelings about his parents--the feeling of abandonment, their preoccupation with one another. The way they had constantly fobbed off duty and responsibility to focus on their relationship... No. That was none of her business.
