With that he pressed his heels into the colt’s sides and the two took off at a brisk trot down the tree-lined drive, leaving Caroline and Buttercup standing in a swirl of stone dust.
“Come on old girl,” Caroline whispered, giving the mare’s sturdy neck a brisk pat. “We’ll show them, won’t we?” The draft seemed to bob her head in agreement and moved gamely out when Caroline gave her a light kick.
They followed the duke and his energetic colt across the road and into a barren field. Recently harvested, it was waiting for the soil to be turned over so it could rest during the winter months and give life to new crops in the spring. Large black crows stood guard over what little remained, their beady eyes keeping a close watch on Buttercup as the mare hopped over a discarded pile of cornstalks.
“Well done,” Caroline exclaimed, and draft gave a proud toss of her head. For such a large horse she was impressively light on her feet and even though Eric and his colt were ahead of them, it wasn’t by very much.
Enjoying the sting of the cold autumn air against her cheeks, she urged Buttercup into a rocking canter. The draft’s plate-sized hooves drummed against the partially frozen ground as they loped across the field, sending crows scattering left and right. Laughing with sheer delight, Caroline pulled the mare up shy of a stone wall and rewarded her with another pat and a leisurely walk on a long rein. Having ridden ahead, Eric circled back when he realized his wife was no longer behind him.
“She likes you,” he said, nodding towards Buttercup as he pulled his colt alongside the draft. “The last lady to ride her could barely manage to get a trot out of the old gal. Well done.”
It was the first praise he had ever given her, and Caroline blushed.
“Thank you,” she said shyly, steeling a glance at him from beneath the slanted brim of her hat. His dark hair had been pushed back by the wind and he’d rolled his sleeves up, revealing the corded muscles in his forearms. A sheen of perspiration marred his brow, and more sweat glistened at the top of his chest where he’d unbuttoned his shirt. As she stared at him Caroline felt an unfamiliar warmth steal across her body. It began in the bottom of her belly and quickly spread all the way up to her breasts. They tingled in response and her blush intensified when she felt her nipples swell and harden.
Good heavens. She hoped she was not falling sick. The last time she’d felt this hot and achy she’d succumbed to a fever that had put her on bedrest for the better part of a month.
She looked away from her husband and instantly felt better…until he reached across Buttercup’s withers and touched her wrist, his thumb resting just above her pulse.
“What – what are you doing?” she asked warily, regarding his hand as one might a particularly venomous snake. His fingers were long and elegant, his nails short and expertly filed. She really needed to meet his valet and pay him her compliments. The man was truly excellent at his job. Of course, it did not hurt that he had been given such a fine specimen to work with. Eric could have been turned out in a brown paper sack and he still would have looked like a Greek God.
“Your gloves. They are nearly worn through.” He turned her wrist to reveal a row of loose stitching. “Why did you not say you needed new ones?”
“Because I do not.” She snatched her hand away. “My gloves may be worn, but they are perfectly suitable.”
Her husband lifted a brow. “There’s a hole in the right one.”
“Maybe that is the way I prefer them.” Caroline did not know why she was being argumentative, especially over such a mundane matter as gloves. Perhaps because she felt picked apart, like a painting that wasn’t quite up to snuff. First he’d thought her hair too short, then her waist too thin, then her dress too tight…and now he had a problem with her hand wear?
“You are not even wearing gloves,” she pointed out.
“I prefer to ride without them.”
“Well I prefer to ride with gloves that are broken in.”
He leaned back in his saddle. “Those aren’t broken in. They’re simply broken. I’ve also noticed your dresses are a little…shall we say…out of season. I’ll have a tailor come tomorrow to take measurements.”
“My dresses are–”
“Let me guess,” he interrupted. “Perfectly suitable? They may have been suitable for the daughter of a – what title did you father hold?”
“An earl!” Caroline said, piqued that he couldn’t remember.
“That’s right, an earl. But you’re a duchess now. The standards are higher. As my wife, you’ll be expected to set the fashion trends. Not come stumbling along three years behind them.”
There was a smile lurking around the edges of his mouth, making her wonder if he even knew how insulting he was being. Probably not. The man was too obtuse to consider anyone else’s emotions. Especially those of his wife.
“If you hate everything about me then why did you marry me?” Snatching up Buttercup’s reins, she kicked the mare into a canter without bothering to wait for a reply.
If you hate everything about me then why did you marry me?
Caroline’s parting words echoed in Eric’s mind as he watched her ride away. Here he’d thought they had been having a witty exchange, but apparently she’d taken his criticisms to heart. His brow furrowed. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that part about stumbling along three years behind, but devil take it he didn’t know what to say to her! Or any other lady, for that matter. His interactions with women had almost always taken place in one of two places, the ballroom or the bedroom.
In the ballroom he’d gotten away with polite observations of the weather. As for the bedroom…well, he’d never spoken very much at all. And what he had said would never be the sort of thing a man could repeat to his wife. Which left him floundering about like a fish tossed up on shore.
Hate?
He didn’t hate Caroline. He was rather beginning to like her…and therein laid the problem.
He wasn’t supposed to like his wife. He wasn’t supposed to feel anything for her at all except for mild disdain, and in the church that was precisely what he’d felt. Mild disdain tempered with a sense of obligation to do his duty and produce an heir. But they weren’t in the church anymore…and with every day that passed his attraction towards her was growing whether he wanted it to or not.
Ever since he’d seen her standing underneath that blasted tree he’d been unable to get her silky golden hair out of his mind. Or the soft curves of her body. Or the pink softness of her lips. There was no way around it. No way to unsee it. The woman was a bloody vision. A gray-eyed siren sitting high on a rock, singing her sweet song of temptation while sailors crashed their boats at her feet. And his vessel was heading straight towards her…in more ways than one.
When she’d descended the staircase this morning, looking all prim and proper in her ruby red riding habit that hugged every decadent line of her body, he’d been tempted to sling her over his shoulder and carry her right back up the stairs. But he hadn’t. He hadn’t because he feared once he tasted her sweet mouth he would only crave her all the more.
Or maybe not. Maybe once he bedded her this unwanted need clawing away at his insides would go away once and for all. Then he could focus on more important matters, like returning to London and finding a mistress.
Yes. That’s what he would do. It’s what he should have done the very first night they were married. Wed and bed, wasn’t that the old saying? No doubt made up by men eager to return to the fields of battle. Because taking an axe to the neck was preferable to living under the same roof as one’s wife for longer than a fortnight.
His mind made up, Eric spurred his mount into a gallop.
Chapter Seven
“What are you doing?” Her fork pausing in midair, Caroline stared at her husband with ill-disguised shock as he walked into the dining room and sat down across from her.
“What does it look like I am doing?” Ignoring the maid who was hastily putting together another setting, Eric rested his elb
ows on the edge of the table and leaned towards her. He’d exchanged his breeches for trousers and his waistcoat for a formal black jacket complete with cravat. Aside from a single errant curl that hung low over his brow, his dark hair was slicked back and his face was clean shaven, giving her a clear view of his distinguished jawline. “I am having dinner.”
Not wanting to risk staining the front of her dress with lamb soaked in a thick butter cream sauce, Caroline slowly lowered her hand. “But – but we never dine together.”
“Well tonight we are.” He unfolded his napkin and draped it over his lap. “How is the lamb? Cook always tends to make it a little dry.”
“It – it’s fine.” After their ride this morning Eric had disappeared without a word and she’d spent the rest of the day practicing her needlework and playing solitaire in the drawing room.
At precisely half past six she’d gone up to her bedchamber to retrieve a book of poetry before returning downstairs for dinner where she’d planned on doing what she did every night: reading by candlelight while enjoying a superbly cooked meal and then retiring to the parlor for a glass of sherry before bed.
It was a routine she’d established after it became readily apparent that her husband had no interest in spending any time with her. Except now here he was, acting for all the world as though they dined together on a regular basis.
“That’s good to hear. Well?” he said, lifting an eyebrow. “Are you going to eat or not? I hope you’re not one of those women who become peckish when a man is present. You’re thin enough as it is.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “Do you even know you are doing it?”
“Doing what?” he asked brusquely as he cut into his lamb.
“Saying such cruel, insensitive things.”
“Me? Cruel and insensitive? Oh all right,” he admitted when she merely lifted a brow. “Perhaps, at times, I may come across as a bit…boorish. But I don’t do it intentionally. Well, not always.”
“A bit?” she practically yelped. “Today alone you’ve insulted me no less than five times.”
Eric frowned. “The devil I have.”
Lifting her right hand, she began to tick off her fingers. “First you complained about my hair, the width of my waist, and the fit of my dress.”
“Those were not complaints, they were observations.”
“Secondly, you said my gloves were worn–”
“Which is true.”
“–and lastly, you said my entire wardrobe was out of style.” Her hand curled into a fist and struck the table with a light thump. “And that was just from this morning!” A little voice in the back of her mind warned her to stop then and there, but like a boulder that was rolling downhill she only kept picking up momentum. “Do you know you’ve not said one kind word to me since we’ve been married? Wait. That is incorrect. You did tell me that Buttercup likes me. But I believe that is more of a testament to her good nature than it is to yours! You are more than boorish. You are rude, and ill-tempered, and – and just plain mean!”
“Are you quite finished?” he said in a very soft, very dangerous tone of voice.
Oh dear, Caroline thought as all of the color drained from her face. She’d just shouted. At a duke. And not just any duke, but her own husband! If he was surly when she was on her best behavior, there was not telling how he would react now.
“Yes,” she squeaked as she dropped her hands into her lap and her gaze to her plate. So much for wanting to be a cat! At least a mouse could hide under the table. “I – I believe I am.”
“Good.” Setting down his utensils with surgical precision, Eric stared at her until she was forced to lift her head. When she did he smiled thinly, but there was no humor in the depths of his frigid blue eyes. “You seem to be under the misguided impression that I owe you something. I do not. I am your husband and you are my wife. It is my duty, as your husband, to provide you with all of the material comforts you could ever possibly wish for. It is your duty, as my wife, to provide me with an heir. That is all I expect of you, and that is all you will expect of me. Do you understand?”
She bit her lip. “But what – what about love?”
“Love?” he jeered. “Love is a myth. Love is a fallacy. Love is a make believe dream spun by those who would like to believe the world and the people in it are better than they really are. You’re a duchess now, Madam. And duchesses do not believe in love.”
Something crumpled inside of Caroline. Something small and vulnerable and easily broken. On a breathless sob she threw her napkin to the ground and pushed back from the table.
“Where are you going?” Eric demanded sharply when she stood up. “You have not finished your lamb.”
Unable to speak for the tight knot of misery in the middle of her throat, she could only stare at him in wretched silence, her soft gray eyes awash with tears she refused to let fall. Then, for the second time that day, she fled.
Well that hadn’t gone the way he had wanted it to.
Slumping back in his chair, Eric raked a hand through his hair and stared down broodingly into his plate of buttered lamb and roasted asparagus. He’d meant to seduce his wife. Not send her running from the room. But when she’d begun to point out his faults he had automatically gone on the defensive, much like a burly bear poked with a stick. And like a bear, he hadn’t been satisfied until he’d drawn blood.
Goddamnit, but he was a bastard. The pain in her eyes when she’d looked at him…it had made his chest ache. Especially since he knew he was the one who had put it here.
His appetite gone, he stood up and left the dining room, intending to find Caroline and make amends before she went to bed. But she wasn’t in the drawing room. Or the parlor. Or the library. Or her bedchamber, for that matter. Going back downstairs, he entered his private study and rang for Newgate. Within minutes, the butler appeared.
“Yes, Your Grace?” he said, snapping to attention in the middle of the doorway.
“Have you seen my wife?”
Newgate consulted the gold watch he always carried with him in the front pocket of his waistcoat. Eric had given it to him last winter to commemorate his service, and it was one of his most prized possessions. “It is half past six, Your Grace. I believe your wife takes her dinner at this time.”
Eric waved his arm. “I was just with her in the dining room. She left and now I can’t find her.”
The butler concealed his surprise with a well-timed blink. “You were…dining together?”
“Trying to, at least.” Crossing to his liquor cabinet, he poured himself some brandy. “Until she yelled at me,” he muttered into his glass before taking a long swallow.
Newgate blinked again. “That doesn’t sound like something Her Grace would do. Might I ask what provoked such unusual behavior?”
It was a rather personal question, but then Newgate and Eric had a rather personal relationship. While the late Duke of Readington had been chasing after his wife and drinking himself into a stupor, Newgate had been teaching the future duke everything he needed to know from how to properly tie a cravat to what lure to use when fishing for trout.
Nannies and governesses had come and gone but Newgate had always remained, and over the years he’d become a reliable source of support and wisdom. Much more so than Eric’s own father, and certainly more so than his harlot of a mother.
“She said I am cruel and insensitive.” Finishing his first glass of brandy, he poured himself another and offered to pour one for Newgate, but the butler shook his head.
“You are cruel and insensitive,” he said candidly.
Eric scowled. “I am aware, Newgate, thank you. She claims I never give her compliments. Only insults.”
“Do you?”
“I suppose. But it’s not my fault she’s so bloody sensitive!”
“You seem quite irritated, Your Grace,” Newgate observed.
“I am irritated.” Stalking to the fireplace, he braced an arm against the wooden mantle and glared dow
n into the flames. “She irritates me, Newgate. Like no other woman I’ve ever known.”
“That is readily apparent.”
“Well what the devil am I supposed to do about it?”
The butler was quiet for a moment. “I think a better question to ask would be why she makes you feel this way. Once you’re able to answer that, I believe you’ll know what to do.”
“Is this another one of your cryptic words of wisdom?”
“I would never presume to give you advice, Your Grace.”
“Oh come off it, Newgate. You’ve been giving me advice for years.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about,” the butler said stiffly.
Leaving his brandy on the mantle, Eric turned around. “Be honest with me, Newgate.”
“Always, Your Grace.”
“What do you think about her?”
“Your wife?”
“No, the bloody Queen.” He rolled his eyes. “Of course I mean my wife.”
“I think she is nothing like your mother. And the sooner you realize that, the happier both of you will be.” He cleared his throat. “Is there anything else I can help you with, Your Grace?”
Just the mere mention of his mother was enough to make Eric’s skin crawl and his shoulders stiffen. Reaching blindly behind him, he picked up his glass of brandy and tipped it all the way back. “If you see the duchess, tell her that I am looking for her.”
“I will make sure to do that. Goodnight, Your Grace.”
“Goodnight, Newgate.” Waiting until the butler had closed the door behind him, Eric sank down into a leather chair and kicked his legs out towards the hearth. Within the brick fireplace the fire crackled and popped, sending little golden sparks flying out through the iron grate. They were too small to cause any harm, most of them burning away into cinders before they ever touched the ground.
Not unlike his marriage.
His mood mellowed by the brandy, Eric was forced to wonder if he wasn’t cutting off his nose to spite his face. Newgate was right. Caroline wasn’t his mother. Lady Eleanor had been selfish and manipulative and shrewd. Caroline was…well, come to think of it he didn’t know enough about to her to know what she was.
A Duchess for all Seasons: The Collection Page 5
