by Tanya Wilde
A wicked smile curved his lips “Is this your way of seducing me? Driving me wild with want?”
“Of course you would see it as such. No one has ever defied your wishes, have they?”
He glared down at her.
“If you wanted a biddable wife, Ambrose, you should not have set your sights on a Middleton. A wallflower might have been more to your taste for I am not a woman who wilts under a man’s stern regard.”
“In the battle of wills, Willow, you will lose.”
Determination rose within her breast. “I suppose we shall see about that,” she murmured.
From nowhere, he tossed the latest newspaper on the bed. Willow hadn’t even realized he had it clutched in his hand. She drew the paper closer, reading the headline, printed in bold letters on the first page of the London Times.
The Duke of St. Ives marries the wrong Middleton.
Willow groaned. “That sounds about right,” she muttered, reading on. Why had she harbored the faintest of hope that the scandal would not be splashed on the first page of the newspapers?
In what might be considered the greatest deception in London’s aristocracy, one of the most powerful men in England was duped in a grand heathen wedding swap.
Well, Willow mused, it could hardly be a wedding swap if one of the parties walked away without a husband.
Though the duke seemed taken with his bride—even kissed her most ardently before the priest!—one has to wonder whether the Dowager’s fainting spell was due to her failing health or bearing witness to the stain of black taint spreading across her coveted family name.
Willow flinched.
“I see you agree with my sentiments,” the duke snatched the paper from her fingers. “It’s a rare pleasure to read the paper and see they refer to my wife as a heathen.”
“There are worse words to be referred as.” Like strumpet. Or harridan. Or fishwife. “They are just speculating. Speculation is good.”
“And how is that, my little heathen wife?”
Willow sighed, her eyes lifting to meet the hard onyx crystals of the duke’s.
“Speculation can be controlled. It can be spun in any way you choose, so you can stop glaring at me and attempt to salvage your mother’s antics. Had she not sobbed like a child and fainted, most of these rumors might have been avoided.”
“I’ve taken steps to resolve this mess.”
He had? “What steps?”
He shrugged. “Dashwood and I are collaborating stories that the name of my bride got mixed up with her sister’s.”
“But you courted Holly, not me.”
“I say, and Dashwood says, I courted you.”
Willow rolled her eyes. “Are you going to punish me for slipping out?”
“I am not a beast. But I do have boundaries and you have crossed them all.” He paused, his eyes meeting hers. “However, since we do not know one another all that well, a certain leeway is to be allowed.”
Willow blinked up at him in shock. He did not wait for a reply but pivoted on his heel and strode from the room.
“Read the damn rules,” he snapped over his shoulder. “Because if you ever put yourself in danger again, I will lock you in your damn chamber for a year.”
She did not doubt that he would do it, too.
Willow fell back on the bed with a sigh. This was not how she expected her morning to begin. Neither had she expected such a relatively mild response from her husband. He must have been furious in discovering her gone. And then there was the headline of today’s paper. She’d fully expected some form of punishment from him. As a matter of fact, she had rather thought he’d transform into an ogre.
But he hadn’t.
This was not the character of a man everyone believed to be a tyrant.
If you ever put yourself in danger again…
In danger. Interesting choice of words. Not if Willow ever defied his rules, but if she ever put herself in danger again. Indeed, perhaps something else was at hand here. She’d have to give the matter some lengthy thought.
She was still not reading those damn rules.
Chapter 9
A Duchess ought not to snort at her husband.
That should be in her husband’s little pamphlet of rules, if it wasn’t already, for it was likely to become a daily habit of hers to snort at his buffoonery. And Willow doubted he’d approve of that.
In fact, it probably was in there, but she still refused to read the infuriating stack of paper. Instead, she dressed and headed down to breakfast.
On entering the breakfast room, it was clear that the battle lines had been drawn long before Willow had woken to an irate husband. Indeed, they’d likely been drawn before the wedding breakfast, if she had to guess.
Not a single spread had been laid out. There was no evidence that the duke or the dowager had ever been present in the room at all. Instead, only one, lonely little plate had been set.
On that plate was an even lonelier slice of toast.
Her scowl deepened.
He claimed he wasn’t a beast.
Willow snorted. Evidence proved otherwise.
Apart from this absurdity, the sad sight of an empty dining room was not something Willow was used to. In their home, breakfast was a lively affair. Any meal, in truth, was a cheerful event. Even tea times were spent together as a family. It was across the table where stories were shared and events recounted.
Willow swept the cold room with a speculative glance. Not even the opulence of the space was enough to bring it a measure of warmth. No candles decorated the surface of the table to suggest evening meals by candlelight. No forgotten ribbon or glove littered the table. No laughter or stories echoed off the walls. It was a hollow space, bereft of even the simplest form of intimate decoration.
It was the saddest thing Willow had ever come across.
And it wasn’t just the dining room. There was no cheerfulness in her new home, she realized. The whole house hadn’t contained laughter in a long while.
She turned to the footman standing in the corner, unmoving as a statue. “Where is the breakfast?” she asked, wanting verbal confirmation from someone other than her husband that there was no breakfast in the house at all.
“No breakfast has been prepared, Your Grace.”
“Then what am I to eat?” Willow pointed to the table. “A slice of cold hard toast?”
The footman cleared his throat, uncomfortable.
Willow glared at the toast. That slice represented the war with her husband. Her sadness turned to anger.
This was ridiculous. She could probably live off a slice of bread in the morning but what was the point of being a duchess if she could not eat like a duchess? They could at least have added some tea to swallow the slice down.
It occurred to Willow this was why Ambrose hadn’t locked her in her room or raved on about how she’d slipped out in the dead of night. He’d already planned due reward. The duke’s reprisal wasn’t loud or obvious. No indeed, his tactics were far subtler than that. He would mete out his displeasure with her in the form of cold, dry toast.
Just like her husband’s black little heart.
“There’s not even a dash of butter,” she muttered.
“’Twas his lordship’s orders, Your Grace.”
Willow shot the footman a scathing look. She already knew that. The poor man looked ready to bolt through the door in response. She sighed. It wasn’t the footman’s fault that her husband was a browbeating beast. But she also knew that the servant would report her reaction to her husband as soon as she left the room.
If she wasn’t so hungry, which only succeeded in fueling her annoyance, she might have laughed. She’d give the man something to report then. It was high time some change came into her husband’s life. A rude awakening, if you will.
It was also time to make allies in this enemy territory. And her first ally clearly ought to be the cook. One did not fight battles on an empty belly.
“What is your name
?” she asked the footman, her arms crossing over her chest.
“Wendell, Your Grace.”
“Well, Wendell, I am the lady of the house, am I not?” she asked him, this time infusing a softer tone into her voice.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Which means I am in charge of running this household, correct?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“That includes the menu, does it not?”
The footman paused, clearing his throat.
Willow arched a brow.
“Yes, Your Grace,” he murmured, shifting on his feet. “That is how things are usually run.”
Usually. Meaning not here.
Too bad, Willow thought. That, too, was about to change.
“Well, Wendell, it appears you have a choice to make.”
“Your Grace?”
“You can continue to follow the duke’s instructions, in which case I will consider you my enemy, or you can come over to the right side of it, and I shall consider you my friend. Of course, you will not lose your job, as I, the lady of the house, am also in charge of hiring servants and letting them go.”
The footman swallowed.
“You will not be relieved of your position if you choose my husband’s side, of course,” Willow reassured. She did not wish to make allies based on threats. “I’d understand if you did for reasons of loyalty and so forth, though I would kindly ask you to leave the room so as not to impede my next plan of action.”
He looked surprised by her words and Willow thought she saw a flash of admiration. She needed the servants on her side. It would show her husband she carried some weight.
“A change will be a good thing, Your Grace,” Wendell said after a brief moment of pause and Willow flashed him a blinding smile.
“My thoughts exactly. Now tell me, what other instructions has my husband handed out?”
“Your Grace is to be escorted at all times.”
“Even in the house?”
Wendell nodded. “I am to shadow your every move.”
Willow scowled. Last night, to her relief, when she had returned home, she had found no footman stationed outside her door. Poppy must not have heard correctly. Or the duke had changed his mind. Needless to say, she’d be watched from today.
“Are you to lurk outside my chambers at night, too?”
Wendell flushed. “That would be Thomas, Your Grace.”
“I see. And I take it you are to report my every step to the duke?”
Wendell nodded.
Willow had not underestimated her husband, he was a man with pride after all, but this seemed way beyond the pale. Hopefully, now that Wendell was on her side, she would not feel so alone in this cold house while she delved deeper towards the root of her husband’s need for control.
“Where is the dowager?” Willow asked.
“She retired to Bath this morning, Your Grace.”
Willow blinked in surprise. She had? Not that Willow was complaining, but she hadn’t expected her mother-in-law to leave at all.
“Did the duke send her away or did she decide to go on her own?”
“I believe the duke had a hand in the departure, Your Grace.”
So Ambrose had sent his mother away. She recalled how he said he’d begun to resolve matters. Sending the Dragon Duchess away must be part of his plan.
And with the dowager gone, they might just accomplish something.
“That is good,” Willow murmured, sparing another look of disgust at the toast. She was so ravenous, she felt tempted to snatch it up just to stave off her hunger. But she decided if she were to prove a point, the toast should remain lifeless on that plate.
Her belly protested as she turned away.
“Wendell, if you will lead me to the kitchen, I would like a word with the cook. And please inform my husband that the toast was left uneaten.” Let him believe she was starving.
“Of course, Your Grace.”
The cook, much to Willow’s enjoyment, was adorable. A plump woman with kind eyes, she had been rightly shocked when Willow appeared in her kitchen. But after a few words of encouragement and the prospect of a better atmosphere, Cook was on her side as well.
They both agreed the time had come to liven up the dining room once more. And what better way to erase the gloom-ridden energy the breakfast of blazing stares had left behind than coming up with a menu fit for a king and queen?
“I suppose the duke will be quite put out with me tonight,” Willow said, taking a bite of buttered toast spread with raspberry jam and cream. She planned to dine tonight. With or without him.
“I suspect he will,” Wendell said, swallowing the last of his coffee.
Cook nodded. “It’s about time the dining room is put to good use again. It has been far too long since we heard laughter echoing off these walls.”
Willow nodded, understanding from Cook that Ambrose hadn’t always been this way. This made her more resolved to draw out the man beneath the mask. And more hopeful that their marriage could have a kinder, less warring future.
“Have you been with the family long?” she asked Cook.
“Since before the lad’s birth.”
“Then you know why the duke changed?”
Wendell suddenly looked uncomfortable. “That is also not our place to say.” He shot Cook a warning look.
“Oh posh, it’s high time for some change to come about this place.” Cook glanced at Willow with sad eyes. “If it helps your cause, child, you must know that His Grace was never the same after his sister, Lady Celia, passed away.”
He’d lost a sister? How had she not known? “How did Lady Celia die?”
“An ailment of the heart, the doctor claimed,” Cook answered.
How sad, Willow thought as her chest tightened. She could not imagine losing any one of her sisters. “How long ago was this?”
“Ten years,” Wendell said.
Ten years! It seemed an insurmountable amount of time. Enough time for any one’s ways to become engraved in stone. “Let us hope I can find a way to win the duke over,” Willow murmured. And find a way to heal him. “And my mother-in-law,” she muttered as an afterthought.
“Do not worry too much over her, dearie. As soon as you win the Duke, the Dowager will follow suit,” Cook said.
“That will be hard to do with her crying about the disgrace and shame I brought to the family,” Willow said, sipping on her tea.
“Oh, she will come around, you just wait and see, dear.”
“Let us hope that is true.”
A part of Willow still wondered if her husband had more motives for sending his mother away—like say, to clear the battlefield. A brazen assumption, yes, but not one she’d put past her husband. He was, after all, a master puppeteer, pulling the strings of people in a most clever, if not unscrupulous, way.
This knowledge that he was once a carefree man made the situation so much more bittersweet. Her heart practically bled that he may still be deeply hurt by the loss of his sister. It changed everything.
Well, almost everything.
Willow recognized the flutters in her stomach with some alarm. Interest. Curiosity. It sparked to life. She wanted to discover that man—the carefree man with the impassioned heart.
“If it hadn’t been for the late duke’s will. . .” Cook was saying.
“What?” Willow’s eyes snapped back to the woman. “What about the late duke’s will?
“It is rumored there was a clause in the will.”
Wendell groaned. Willow and Cook both ignored him.
“A clause?” Willow asked, intrigued. “What type of clause?”
Cook leaned forward, lowering her voice. It was positively gratifying. “A clause that commanded the duke to wed within twelve months of his father’s death.”
“Or what?” Willow asked, curious as to how a man with so much power could be commanded to wed.
“Or the duke would forfeit his entire inheritance.”
“No,�
�� Willow said, shaking her head.
“Yes,” Cook said, both she and Wendell nodding now.
Dear lord.
It explained so much. Why he married in haste. His dubious methods in doing so. His clear distaste for the marriage. How would it feel to have one’s entire world placed in jeopardy by a dead relative? To have no choice on the timing of such a significant matter as marriage? All while he was seemingly still grieving a sister. And, Willow assumed, the clause aside, a father.
She, at least, had entered the marriage of her own free will. It’d been a drastic and somewhat crazed decision, but it’d been her decision nonetheless. No one had forced her.
Willow made a decision there and then. Ambrose might not know this yet, but Willow intended to restore brightness to his life. She had a feeling that a little light in his world might go a long way towards bringing back the man he once was—the man she’d like to become acquainted with.
Filled with renewed determination, she turned to her new allies. “About tonight. . .”
Chapter 10
“My wife has declared war, Benson,” Ambrose told his valet, who had been with him for the past twelve years. The man had never been afraid to voice his opinion, and over the years, Ambrose had come to value it.
“War, Your Grace?”
“Would you perhaps have a better word for what has transpired in this house?”
And perhaps the term war was a bit overdramatic, but it certainly felt like he had marched straight into a battlefield.
For Christ’s sake, he had expected that when he set eyes on her this morning, all the pent-up anger over the wedding and his fury over her midnight rendezvous would tumble forth in an avalanche of rage.
But had that happened?
No. Instead, she had bloody floored him with her big, blue, innocent eyes and her rumpled hair. Most of his anger had fled at the sight of her beneath the crumpled sheets and was replaced by hot burning desire. The temptation to take her into his arms right then and there had been so great, his heart had nearly exploded from his chest.
The marriage was not going the way he had thought at all.
It was damned disturbing.
