1
After six miserable years of marriage, Maria-Anita Bassala, the second Duchess of Warmisham, had finally been defeated.
“I need to see my husband,” she told the tall, armed man standing before the gilded bedroom door. “Please.”
Gerrard didn’t move, though Maria was sure she caught a flash of pity, sparking through his blue eyes. “I’m sorry, your grace,” he replied. “Duke Warmisham ordered me not to let anyone in.”
And especially not you, was the unspoken meaning, and Maria dragged in breath, shoved down the steadily swelling panic. She had to stay calm. She had to think. She was losingeverything.
“This is an emergency, Gerrard,” she said, through gritted teeth. “I need to speak to my husband at once.Please.”
The pity again flicked through Gerrard’s eyes, and he crossed his arms over his broad chest. “I’m sorry, your grace, but the Duke wasveryspecific in his orders. And look” — he grimaced, his voice dropping — “you don’t want to go in there now, all right? He’s…busy.”
Of course he was, the utter bastard — and for an instant there was the wild, reckless compulsion to fight her way past Gerrard, to knock that odious, sickening look out of his eyes. It was the way everyone looked at Maria these days, from the scullery-maids to the grandest ladies of her acquaintance, and she could almost hear his thoughts aloud, grating down her spine like a dozen raking claws.
Difficult. Frigid. Barren.Hysterical.
“If you’re suggesting,” Maria said, voice clipped, “that I’m too irrational to accept how my husband prefers to spend his leisure time, I assure you, you’re quite mistaken. I could not care less who he takes to his bed, providing it isn’t me.”
The words rang of truth, heavy and bitter, sparking yet more pity in Gerrard’s watching eyes — and Maria had to force her body to stillness this time, her hands in fists at her sides. Gerrard was just doing what he’d been told, like every other horrid lackey in this horrid hellish household. And truly, for her husband to reduce one of his top generals to the post of bedroom doorman was surely an insult in itself, and Maria needed to think, gods damn it,think.
“I’m sorry, your grace,” Gerrard said again, and he did even look sorry, the wince tightening his mouth. “I’m sure he wasn’t expecting you.”
But wait.Wait. That was it, good gods, and Maria felt her eyes squeezing shut, her shoulders sagging. Not a mistake, then. Not an oversight. No, it was another play. Another fuckinggame.
“Oh, I assure you, Gerrard,” she said, far flatter than before. “He’s most certainly expecting me. Now could you please stop this farce, and let me in?”
And maybe it was something in her voice, or her eyes, because Gerrard huffed a heavy sigh, and rapped on the door. And after an unintelligible reply from within, and then a moment’s irritated-sounding discussion through the crack, there was the distant sound of a nearby door shutting. And finally, Gerrard stepped aside, opened the gilded door, and waved Maria in.
And while she should have thanked him, or something, she could only seem to stare straight ahead as she passed. Her hands still clenched in fists, the panic pounding a furious thunder-beat in her ears.
She was losing everything. And of course, it was all thanks tohim.
Duke Warmisham, the ruler of Preia, the head of the realm’s far-reaching Council. Rich, handsome, experienced, obscenely powerful. And currently sitting up in a mass of rumpled silk sheets, his chest bare and glistening, his silver-streaked hair boyishly tousled. And beside him, tossed casually on the bed, was a stoppered bottle of oil, and what looked like an army-issued pair of trousers.
Typical. So damned typical, from the man who just last month had upheld a law condemning such things. And the man who was currently smirking at Maria, as though he’d just accomplished the realm’s cleverest coup.
“What in the gods’ names is so important, wife?” he asked, his voice affable and cool, betraying not even a trace of its underlying malice. “You’ve worked yourself into a mania again, I presume? Sit down, before you hurt yourself.”
He’d flicked his hand toward the nearby damask chair, and Maria choked back the surge of rebellion, of sheer overpowering rage. She’d had years of practice dealing with this man, enough to know that losing her temper would just play into his snide, slippery hands. Difficult.Hysterical.
“As you know, I met with Lakewood today,” she made herself say, as she strode toward the chair with stiff steps. “And he informed me that my inheritance has recently been…misplaced.”
Her voice had come out smooth, rational, without the faintest whiff of so-calledhysteria, and as she sank into the chair, her gaze on her husband was calm too, despite her shallow breaths. “My inheritance was protected,” she continued, “by my late father. Of all the money you gained from our marriage, that was to remain mine, in perpetuity. You knew that. Youacceptedthat.”
Her husband didn’t immediately reply, but only kept gazing at her, smug, amused. And looking back at his odious, handsome face, it felt laughable — laughable! — to think of all Maria’s stupid, starry-eyed delusions of six years past. That she’d fallen into a deeply romantic tale, in which the dashing, worldly, recently widowed duke had swooped in to rescue the damsel in distress. That he’d desperately longed for an eager, capable new partner — someone to confide in, to share his busy political life with, to build a new family with. Someone to stand by his side against the world.
Laughable. Because in truth, Duke Warmisham had had no interest in a partner, political or otherwise. No interest in more family, either, thanks to the three hideously expensive adult offspring he already possessed. And he’dcertainlyhad no interest in a wife with opinions, or emotions, or ambitions — or, most humiliating of all, with needs or expectations in the bedroom.
No. It had all been about the money. And also, perhaps, about Duke Warmisham’s assumption that his devoted, naive new wife would surely be another weak, docile minion to fawn over him, and leap to do his bidding, and sweetly host his dinner-parties. Someone to look the other way while he freely indulged his true desires, none of which had ever included her.
“Oh, settle down, wife,” he said now, with a casual wave of his hand. “It’s likely due to the new bill the Council ratified last month. Protected personal funds can now be appropriated by the proper parties, providing it’s in the deeper interest of the realm’s public safety.”
Good gods. Maria had vaguely heard about that new bill — her husband’s awful Council had a regular habit of creating loathsome new laws — but he’d meant to use it against his ownwife? To steal her inheritance? To make herdestitute?!
“That money wasmine,” she heard herself say, her voice very far away. “It wasnot yoursto take!”
But her husband only shrugged, and gave her a chilly, satisfied smile. “Ididn’t take it,” he replied. “It’s being used for the betterment of the realm. And you’re perfectly well cared for here, aren’t you? So what use did you have for it, anyway?”
