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“They’re talking to you, dear,” came the duke’s voice. “You’re a ‘Grace’ now too.”
She opened her eyes and blinked at the liveried servant. “I’m sorry. What did you ask?”
“He asked if you would like some smoked eel and black pudding.”
“No,” she said quickly. She’d barely touched what was already on her plate.
He waved a lazy, lace-cuffed wrist and the eel dish was whisked away. “You should eat more of your dinner,” he said when the servant was gone.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’ll be hungry later. I’d like you to eat.”
That’s precisely why I choose not to eat. Gwen knew she was being childish with these petty rebellions. Even if she could find the appetite to eat, she was sure he’d find her table manners lacking. He constantly scrutinized her—and constantly found flaws. She took a small bite of duck so he would stop staring at her.
“You must cut with your knife and eat with your fork,” he said. “Not stab the flesh and gouge it from the bone. I don’t see any cave fires about.”
She wanted to stab him. She wanted to poke her fork right into his eye. Instead she cut another piece of duck with exaggerated gentility, then left it to congeal on her plate.
“Much more prettily done,” he said. “No, don’t frown at me that way. You must understand that life in London will not be like life in Wales. You’ll only earn the regard of the ton with the finest social graces and impeccable manners.” He looked her up and down, with that cool, dissecting gaze. “I suppose you’ll do well enough once we get you a proper wardrobe and some finishing lessons.”
“I don’t need finishing lessons,” she said. “I’m already finished. I’m twenty-two years old.”
“Even so, you’ll be obliged to improve yourself if I wish. Now that you’re a duchess, you’ll have to move within the highest echelons of society.”
“Oh, must I?” Irritation gave her an unruly tongue. “Perhaps it would be more appropriate to keep me in the barn with the pigs and chickens.”
His gaze didn’t waver. “Why would I do that?”
“Why indeed? You behave as if I’m no more cultured than an animal, wallowing in the mud and eating from a trough.”
“I mentioned a cave, not a trough.”
The abominable man mocked her. “A barn. A trough. A cave,” she snapped. “You might stow me anywhere out of the way, so long as I don’t offend your aristocratic sensibilities. Why, it would make the most sense to set me loose in the field with the brood mares. They’d understand me perfectly.”
His lips tightened. “Are you done with your tantrum? Have a bit more duck.”
“I don’t want any duck. I don’t like duck.” She put down her silverware and glared at him. A servant came bustling in to take her plate but the duke waved him off.
“She’s not finished.”
“I am finished,” she told the servant. “You may take my plate.”
The servant stared between them, goggle-eyed. The glint in her husband’s eyes had frozen to hard blue ice.
“Do not think to engage in a battle of wills with me, Guinevere,” he said. “Not now or ever. You’ll always lose.”
“Do you believe so? I’m awfully willful,” she retorted. “That’s why no one else would marry me.”
“No one else would marry you because your father is an ambitious opportunist who was wise enough to save you for better things. I’m sorry if you were led to believe otherwise.”
He said these words calmly, and studied her reaction as he studied everything else. Gwen wondered if he spoke the truth. For so many years, no man had courted her. She’d believed it was her appearance, her uncommon height, or her poor skill at conversation. But according to the duke, her father had kept her lonely and marginalized in order to fulfill his ambitions.
“Statecraft,” he said as she glowered down at her plate. “It makes pawns of us all.”
“I don’t care.”
“You do, but it’s all right to deny it.” He gave her a sympathetic look. “I know this is difficult, and that you are being fractious as a form of protest. No matter. I’ll have cured you of such tendencies within a few days. Eat something.”
Gwen gripped her silverware in rigid fingers and very properly cut the wee tiniest, most miniscule sliver of duck any person ever carved, and brought the speck of meat to her lips.
The duke watched her chew it with wee, tiny little bites, then beckoned the innkeeper, who hovered right beside the door. The portly man hurried over and sketched an obsequious bow. “How may I assist you, Your Grace?”
He turned and smiled at the man. “If you’ve a fresh birch rod anywhere on the premises, I’d like it delivered to Her Grace’s rooms at the first opportunity.”
The man nodded and bowed even lower. “I’ll have one assembled, Your Grace, right now, fresh as anything. One birch to Her Grace’s room without delay.”
“Splendid.”
Gwen found the bit of duck had lodged itself in her throat.
Her husband turned back to her as the innkeeper scuttled away. “If you’re certain you’re completely finished, darling,” he said with daunting emphasis, “then let us retire upstairs.”
Chapter Five: Discipline
Aidan felt rather proud to have made it one full day of marriage before spanking his wife. In this, of course, he outlasted his friend Townsend, who had spanked his wife on their wedding night, before he even bedded the woman.
Ah, well. Disorderly wives craved orderly consequences. Acting out was a plea to be taken in hand. Guinevere’s stunt with the tiny piece of duck was funny, yes. He might have laughed, but there was nothing amusing about a power struggle within a marriage. By nature, he must lead and she must follow. He must rule and she must obey. He must discipline, and she must bend and take it. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t earned.
While the inn staff assembled the necessary birch rod, Aidan’s valet freshened him up, scraping away stubble, applying cologne, and offering a somber-hued dressing gown that was perfect for the occasion. The man was excellent at reading his moods.
Aidan dismissed the servant for the night, and passed through to the adjoining chamber. He found his wife in a chair by the fire, still dressed in her traveling clothes. He regarded her a moment, then crossed to stand by the mantel.
“I brought a lady’s maid on the journey specifically for your use,” he said. “She would have helped you dress for bed.”
“I can dress myself.”
“Her name is Pascale. She’s French, and came highly recommended from the Duchess of Winningham’s service.”
He received no thanks for procuring this most desirable of servants, the French lady’s maid, who must now be stewing in the servants’ chambers. He received nothing but a vitriolic stare.
“Why are you so angry?” he asked. “What have I done to you, to make you dislike me with such fervor?”
“What have you done?” She got to her feet, her hands in fists. “You questioned my virtue, repeatedly, when you were the one dallying with village girls a mere day before we were to meet.”
“One village girl, who happened to be you, so I don’t see how that counts.”
“You’ve also sneered at my family and their hospitality, forced me to perform unnatural acts in your traveling coach—”
“I don’t know if I forced you, darling.”
“—criticized my table manners, and humiliated me before the innkeeper by asking for a birch rod to be delivered to my room.”
“What else was I to do? I needed one.”
As if on cue, a knock came at the door. Aidan opened it and accepted the fresh birch from a blushing maidservant. He inspected the bundle of slim, straight withes, then tapped it against his palm to test its mettle.
“Undress,” he said to his wife. “Let’s get this unpleasantness over with.”
She stared at him. “You don’t really mean you are going to... I thought you only me
ant to...to threaten me.”
“I never threaten, Guinevere. I decide upon consequences, and then I act. Now, will you undress, or shall I do it for you?”
She answered with a bit less bravado. “I don’t want to undress. I don’t want you to punish me. I haven’t been birched since I was a child.”
“That probably explains the extent of your willfulness. As I said, I’ll train it out of you.”
