“I promised to honor and keep you,” he continued. “I do, you know. I honor you.”
Honor.What did honor even mean?
He’d promised to love her too, but he’d given his heart to another long ago.
On the other hand, he’d been honest about hisdear Viv.
If Cassie could not expect her husband’s love, at least she could rely on his integrity. And trust was more than many couples had between them, was it not?
Even if her fury continued to billow choking plumes of smoke and ash, she must remember—she’d proposed. This marriage was not entirely his fault.
And he was…trying.
“Thank you,” she forced. “I promised to be a good wife. And Iwill,” she added with only slightly bitter resolution. “But go, Harbury.Please.”
An expression of concern shaded his features. Briefly, his lips parted as if he were about to speak. She didn’t want him to speak.
Shecouldn’tspeak. Because she hadn’t any words for the unwanted emotions warring inside.
All day she’d seesawed between conflicting desires.
She wanted to hold her husband. She wanted to push him away. She wanted to ask him what the future held. She wanted to tell him, in no uncertain terms, they had no future, at least no future in which they might be happy.
Thank heavens she’d her five sisters to distract her on this, the most consequential day of her life, else she might have gone mad. But they—along with Harbury’s sister Sarah and Adrian’s sister Emily—had already left to return to London.
She was alone with her husband. Alone on his vast, one hundred-forty-nine-thousand-acre estate. Two towns, several villages, over one hundred farmers, tradesmen, gamekeepers, and other tenants, all under the strict eye of Harbury’s head steward Mr. Anderson—a man who, just this morning, had offered felicitations in a hearty tone with unwelcoming eyes, leaving her feeling unwanted, extraneous.
She did not belong here. She would never belong here.
She shivered. Harbury moved to adjust the coverlet around her person.
“Please,” she repeated. “I just want to go to sleep.”
He hesitated, then nodded.
She looked away as he donned his banyan. When she was certain he was fully covered, she faced her husband again.
“Good night, duchess,” he said, his mouth quirking in a wry, somewhat mystified attempt at a smile.
“Good night, duke.” She sniffed, offering what she hoped was a thankful expression…albeit a watery one.
Then,finally,he was gone.
And the new Duchess of Harbury—her heart sliced into a tripartite of silly hope she dared not indulge, sensual curiosity she feared, and furious, flowing enmity she did not know how to contain—calmly dried her tears.
For better or worse, Harbury was now her husband.
As planned, they would spend the summer here at Harbury Hall. She would come to know him, come to know his people and his land. She would be good. She would be dutiful. And then, she would reunite with Eliza and her sisters at Ravenswood, Redver’s Manor home and they would all return to town for the little Season.
Her sacrifice would be her sisters’ gain.
But the little Season seemed far, far away. And the duke, far, far too present. Half of her wanted to win him, the other, to ruin him.
Heaven only knew which part would prevail.
Chapter Two
Cassie had slept—finally—butas her consciousness dawned the following morning, her limbs felt stiff and her mind muddled. Though she’d had little true rest, with effort, she forced her eyes to open. Ripples in her bedsheets came into focus, ripples aglow with sun-kissed diamond shapes.
