Page 22 of The Duke Who Claimed Her

“Does that concern you?”

“No, it is strange,” she said. “I thought… Should we not…” Her cheeks colored pink, and she looked away.

The Duke observed her with a slight smirk on his lips. “This marriage is only for convenience, Arabella. I thought I made that clear.”

“You did.”

“Then what is the problem?”

So many things!

She did not even want to spend the night with him! What she wanted was a mere suggestion that the marriage which she had entered would not see her descend into a state of loneliness and despair. Even if she was free, what good was that if she was alone and unhappy?

Worse still, she knew that nothing she said would make a difference. The Duke had not saved her, as he claimed. He had simply captured her, carting her off to a new prison, and Arabella, the fool, had blindly followed along.

My father was right…

“There is no problem,” she said coldly, glaring at him, and wanting him to see it. “None at all.”

“Are you sure?”

“Would you care if there was?”

He looked at her, his brow furrowed. No doubt he saw her anger, and she wondered if she suspected the reason. “No, actually. I would not.”

“Good, because I am fine. In fact, I am happy that you are leaving. It will give me a night to myself. One of many to come, I am sure.”

He exhaled sharply from his nose, a flash of anger passing behind his eyes, smothered quickly so that he returned to his same detached self. “I will see you tomorrow, Arabella. And as I said, if you need anything⁠—”

“You will be the last person I ask,” she cut him off. “Seeing as you will not be here.”

“Good night,” he said sharply. “Sleep well. Hopefully, tomorrow, you will be in a better mood than this one.” With that said, the Duke stepped around her and strode down the hallway, not once looking back.

Arabella watched him go, glaring at him, letting her anger show so that she felt it burn hot and fiery and fierce.

Deep down, however, she knew that the anger she felt was not saved for the Duke. She wanted it to be that way because it would be easy.

Ultimately, and as hard as it was to admit, she was the one toward whom her anger was directed. She had been given a choice; she made it, and now she had to regret it.

Free, perhaps, but lonely, and with no sense that her husband or anyone cared. She admitted with a depressed groan and a growing pit in her stomach that such freedom was hardly worth the cost. Just as she knew that this marriage, whatever it might have been, was already over before it even began.

Chapter Eight

Caspian had spent most of his adult life alone. That was on purpose, done because he did not relish the idea of dragging some poor soul into the kind of life that someone like him could only offer. Was he as bad as he thought? No. Even Caspian knew that. But that did not mean there was not a chance he might become that.

Constantly, his mind returned to his father’s dire warning, that Caspian could pretend to be righteous and good, that he could act with honor and duty, but that at the end of the day, Caspian was his son, and that they were more alike than he dared to admit.

And to learn this as a truth… I would not wish that horror upon anyone.

It was because he spent his life alone that Caspian rarely had to think about anyone other than himself. He did as he pleased, when he pleased, and always he was sure to remind himself that this was for the best. When he drank, when he gambled, only he was the one to suffer the consequences, and that was how he liked it.

Cowardly, perhaps. But for all his fears that he might turn out like his father, the fact that Caspian was so careful not to let anyone else in was surely proof that he was different?

It was easy not to think about anyone else, which is why Caspian decided to go out on his wedding night. A precedent needed to be set, and what better way to do so than to remind his new wife that, although their lives were connected, they would live them separately?

And one day, when she realizes why, she will thank me…

So it was that Caspian found himself walking into the gentleman’s club, Boodle’s Club, shortly after leaving his wife in her bedroom. The journey was spent in a state of guilt, knowing he had done the wrong thing, while trying to convince himself otherwise.