“You were,” Mr. Renault lied, even as his teeth ground together in a way she knew meant he was struggling to endure the sound. “What if we tried something else? Just some basic techniques that might help you move your fingers more quickly?”
“Oh but I so like playing the notes,” she said sweetly, giving him her most innocent smile. “Let me try one more time.”
This time, she pressed the bow even more firmly into the strings in order to increase the sound, so that the harsh, dissonant notes filled her ears. There was no way that her husband couldn’t hear them. And indeed, as she played the final note in the scale, she had the pleasure of hearing his chair scrape against the floor of his study next door, as if he had stood up very suddenly.
Leah smiled to herself. So he was annoyed. Of course he was. She immediately began to play the scale. Then again. Then again. Over and over again, the horrible, unharmonious notes sounded out through the music room, grating against her ears and the ears of all who could hear them.
Next door, she heard the Duke storm over to his door and fling it open. But then he stopped, and she knew he was hesitating. Coming over to yell at her would mean acknowledging she had got to him. Butnotcoming over to yell at her would mean continuing to listen to the screech of the violin.
“Stop!” Mr. Renault yelled, jolting Leah out of her tunnel vision, and she lowered the violin and gazed at the violin instructor, who was practically pulling his hair out of his hair. He looked mad. “Please stop, Your Grace! I cannot listen to you mangle this beautiful instrument like this! I quit! You clearly have no interest in learning how to play it, you just want to waste my time!”
Leah gazed at him with a mixture of wonder and awe as he began to pack up his own violin, muttering to himself as he did abouttime-wasting aristocrats!She was a little sad to see him go, but she also felt not a small bit of triumph, as well. If she had annoyed Mr. Renault this much, she had undoubtedly annoyed her husband, as well.
And without Mr. Renault, she would be better able to play terribly to her heart’s content--or until her husband finally paid attention to her.
The next few days passed surprisingly quickly, as Leah amused herself with the game she had created to annoy and punish her husband. She wasn’t always sure if she was playing the game with him, or if he was clueless he was even part of it, but she found it staved off the boredom to think that she was irritating him as much as he deserved to be irritated.
After another day of playing the violin had not resulted in her husband coming to yell at her, although she was pretty sure she had heard him pacing back and forth in his study while she was playing, as if trying to control himself from showing any sign of his annoyance. However, by the end of the second day, she was sick of playing the violin and had decided to move on to other pursuits.
The most fun of these was buying lavish, expensive dresses, the bills for which she also instructed themodisteto send to her husband. There were ball gowns to buy with layers and layers of silk and embroidery, all of which cost a small fortune. Then there were riding habits, morning dresses, evening gowns, and a whole assortment of gloves, hats, and jewelry. She nearly fainted when she saw the bill. Once, Emery had treated her to an expensive gown, when they were preparing for the London Season, and Lucien had been furious. But this bill was so much higher she was sure it would have her husband breaking down her bedroom door to yell at her.
But he didn’t. Despite the fact she had run up a debt that even a king would faint at, he didn’t come find her and tell her not to spend so excessively. He didn’t yell at her. He didn’t so much as glance at her during the brief moment she saw him crossing from the breakfast room to his study.
But instead of dampening her resolve, it only increased it. She was not going to allow this man to ignore her. Not after everything they had already been through together.
So she began to redecorate as well. Mr. Smith had found someone in a larger market town nearby who could reupholster furniture, and her days became filled with going to different artisans throughout the nearby towns finding pieces that fit her style better. Because while the castle was richly decorated, it was in a very old-fashioned style that Leah didn’t like very much. She wanted a modern home, one that reflected her tastes.
The redecoration took a week, and for that week, there was furnitureeverywhere.Not to mention builders coming through to knock down walls, hang new paintings, and rip up old flooring and put new flooring in. There were days when the sound of hammers and saws filled the castle from dusk until dawn.
And still… nothing.
And at the end of the week, as Leah looked around the hall of her beautiful new home, the entranceway filled with marble instead of the old, dark wood that it had been before, she knew for certain that her husband really did want to live separately. He wasn’t just angry at her. This wasn’t a phase.
He could ignore me gutting his entire home--that’s how much he doesn’t want me in his life. He would rather put up with me destroying the castle than speak to me.
The thought was utterly depressing.
This is my new reality, she thought, as she gazed out the windows and down toward the lazy river in the distance. It was already early autumn, she realized, and while the days were growing more chilly, today was warmer than it had been in a week. She should be happy. She was a duchess; she had a beautiful home; she was married to a man who was as handsome as he was wealthy; and best of all, she had escaped Lord Dubois.
But at what cost? I am going to be lonely for the rest of my life. I won’t even have children to help me get through the long, lonely years.
Leah’s eyes filled with tears. She knew she was being silly, that many ladies experienced far worse fates, but the disappointment was still palpable in her. This wasn’t the life she had wanted for herself. She had wanted love, a family, children of her own. Now she had nothing but a beautiful home and some fancy dresses.
The river glinted in the distance, and Leah shook herself.Stop feeling sorry for yourself! You have a whole ducal estate to explore, and you’re wasting time moaning over your fate!
=
Chapter Thirteen
“She is trying to kill me,” Dorian said out loud to himself as he stared at the new curtains his wife had installed in his study while he’d been out the other day. They were light blue in color, not at all to his taste. In fact, the way she had redecorated the entire castle was not to his taste. Not that he really cared one way or another; but it had driven him crazy to see her doing whatever she wanted with his home without even asking him.
Not that you made that possible for her to do, he reminded himself.
Anyway, it wasn’t the redecorating that was driving him crazy. It wasn’t even the incessant and terrible violin playing that made him want to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. It wasn’t her mischievous little ways that she was trying to irritate him--like spending a small fortune on a couple of dresses!
He knew that none of these were the real problem, but that he was choosing to be irritated by them because it was easier thanadmitting that being in such close proximity to Leah, and not being able to speak to her, to laugh with her, to touch her, was driving him out of his mind.
Everywhere he went in the house, he could smell her. Her perfume clung to every surface, and every time he inhaled a whiff of the delicate, feminine smell—vanilla and lilac, elegant and feminine with an unexpected touch of sweetness— he felt his heart begin to race and his palms begin to sweat.
