“I said we’re engaged. The – the duke and I. He just asked me to marry him and we…we were celebrating. Our engagement.” She winced. “Because we’re engaged.”
Well that didn’t sound at all convincing. But it must have done the trick for Emmeline, because her eyes bulged from her head and her shriek was loud enough to rattle the chandelier.
“You’re what? I – I don’t believe it! Your Grace! Is this true?”
Both Regina and Emmeline looked at the duke.
Both of them held their breath.
Regina closed her eyes.
“She’s correct,” he said after a long, long pause. “We are engaged.”
Regina’s eyes popped open in stunned surprise. With a choked cry Emmeline spun on her heel and fled the library, leaving Regina and Glenmoore staring at each other in silence.
“I…” Her mouth opened. Closed. She shook her head. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You can start by thanking me for saving your lying little arse,” he snarled. “Then you can get the hell out of my sight. I’ll have my solicitor contact your father in the morning. I assume he will have no qualms with our betrothment?”
“My – my father died a little over a year ago. But my stepfather will have no issue.” That was putting it mildly. While her mother’s new husband seemed inordinately fond of the twins, he’d never made an attempt to bond with Regina nor had she tried to grow close to him. He was a nice enough man and he’d been more than generous, but he wasn’t her father and she wasn’t about to pretend otherwise. Once he learned of her engagement – to a duke, no less – he’d probably throw a going away party.
“Good,” Glenmoore said curtly. “I’ll have the bans put in the papers on Monday. I want this farce over and done with as soon as possible.
It wasn’t exactly the romantic proposal Regina had been dreaming of, but she hardly had room to complain. Not after she’d more or less lied her way into a marriage. Which begged the question…
“Why did you agree?” she asked softly, daring to meet the duke’s tumultuous gaze. He was positively furious with her. She could see it in the rigid brackets surrounding his mouth. Hear it in the deep growl that punctuated his sentences. Feel it in the tension rolling off of him in wave after surly wave. “You didn’t have to.”
He was silent for a long, long time. When he finally spoke his voice was quiet as a whisper and strong as iron. “Make no mistake. This marriage will be in name only. I’ll no more be your husband after our vows have been spoken than I am right now. And you may be my wife, but you’ll never be my duchess.”
On that ominous note he stalked out of the library, leaving Regina to wonder what she’d gotten herself into…and what A Lady would have to say about it.
Chapter Four
3 Months Later
Glenmoore Manor
“I still cannot believe you’re a duchess.” Lounging back on Regina’s enormous four poster bed, Kitty kicked off her shoes and smiled dreamily up at the silk canopy. “What is it like, to have anything you want?”
Regina thought about it for a moment. “Boring,” she decided. “Although I do enjoy the library. There’s an attached solarium, you see, and when it rains I like to sit out by the–”
“Now that sounds boring.” Rolling her eyes, Kitty pushed herself into a sitting position and regarded her dearest friend with a withering stare. “You’re the Duchess of Glenmoore, and all you can talk about is books, books, books.”
“I like books,” Regina said defensively.
“Yes, I know. All of England knows. Probably France and Spain as well. But tell me what it is like to be married to a duke!” Kitty’s head head canted to the side. “Where is your husband, by the by? Is he going to join us for breakfast?”
Not bothering to contain her snort, Regina opened her jewelry box and, after a moment spent perusing the large and ostentatious collection (most of which she’d yet to wear), she selected a small pair of pearl earrings to compliment her simple cream and peach colored dress. “I have absolutely no idea where my husband is and no, he will most likely not be joining us for breakfast. Or tea. Or dinner. Or any other meal during your stay.”
Kitty had arrived yesterday. Regina had never been so grateful to see her friend, most likely because she’d never been so lonely. Over the past three months her only companions had been the staff, and while her lady’s maid was quite lovely, she wasn’t Kitty. Her husband – how strange it was to think of him that way, even now – was a ghost, spending most of his time in London at his various clubs. He’d returned to the manor two nights ago but she’d yet to see him, and only knew he was in residence because she had overheard two maids discussing his arrival.
What a whirlwind their wedding had been! As he’d promised, Andrew had wasted no time in procuring a special license and they were wed within a fortnight in a small village church just outside of London where they’d been able to escape the fanfare and speculation of Society. Before the ink had dried on the parish registry she had been put in a carriage and whisked away to the countryside where she’d remained ever since, whiling away the hours by reading in the solarium and wandering the expansive grounds.
She had no doubt that if she counted up all her steps she could have walked across England twice over by now, but what else was she to do? Read and walk. Walk and read. And eat, she thought with a guilty glance down at her waist. There’d been plenty of eating. By herself, always by herself, because her husband – if she could even call him that – despised her.
Oh, he hadn’t come right out and said as much. That would mean he would actually have to speak to her. Which he hadn’t done. Not one word since they’d left the church where he’d given her a stiff, impersonal ‘Safe travels’ and then walked away without bothering to look back.
Regina couldn’t blame him for his anger. She was the cause of it, after all. But she’d never imagined it would last this long or fester this deeply. Especially since she’d gone to him the day after they were discovered in the library and tried to atone for her foolish lie.
The way he’d looked at her…as if she were a piece of muck he’d just scraped off the bottom of his boot. Her cheeks still burned to think of it, and she pressed a damp linen to her face to cool her flushed skin before turning towards Kitty.
“He hates me,” she confessed, her voice muffled by the cloth. Bunching it in a frustrated ball, she tossed it onto the floor, only to promptly retrieve it and put it back on her dressing table. She may have had a dozen servants to see to her every need, but that did not mean she was comfortable with them picking up her messes. Andrew had done enough of that already, and look where she was now. Trapped in a loveless marriage the likes of which she feared even A Lady, on her very best day of writing, would not be able to salvage.
“Who hates you? The butler? I wouldn’t take personal offense. Butlers hate everyone.” Sliding off the bed, Kitty wandered to the window and peered out. Regina’s bedchamber – separated from her husband’s by an entire wing – overlooked acres of golden wheat gently blowing in the summer breeze.
Despite its grandeur, Glenmoore Manor was very much a working estate and supported more than a hundred different tenants. Regina had already met several of them during her daily walking excursions, and found them all to be happy, well fed, and pleased to be farming the duke’s land.
If only he treated his wife as kindly as he did those he employed.
“No, Mr. Grieves has been quite cordial.” Taking up Kitty’s vacated seat on the edge of the mattress, Regina lifted her knees and hugged them against her chest. “Andrew, on the other hand…” Trailing off, she bit her lip and shook her head as tears born of frustration and helplessness burned the corners of her eyes. “Andrew hates me. And he has every reason to.”
“Nonsense.” Hands on her hips, Kitty twirled away from the window. “No one could hate you, Gina. It would be like…it would be like hating a puppy, or a newborn kitten, or a rainbow. No one hates rainbows.�
��
“My husband must, because he has made it very clear that he loathes the sight of me.”
“Has he said he hates you?” Kitty asked.
“Well, no, not in so many words. But–”
“Has he said he loathes you?”
“No, but he–”
“Men are not very good at expressing their feelings. Just last week at Lady Druberry’s garden party the Earl of Chesterfield compared my eyes to rocks. Rocks.” Her feigned expression of horror drew a reluctant smile from Regina. “I knew what he was trying to say, of course. But because he is a man, and men don’t think with their minds, he bumbled the entire thing up. Not that I would have ever entertained a serious suit from him in the first place...”
“Is he not wealthy enough?” Dashing at the stray tears that had managed to find their way down her cheeks, Regina began to search for her stockings and shoes. While her old bedchamber could hardly be considered small, this one was nothing short of enormous and she was always losing track of things.
“No, he’s rich as Midas.” Kitty’s nose wrinkled. “But his breath leaves something to be desired.”
It was always something with Kitty. Either her suitors were too tall or too short. Too handsome – Regina hadn’t even known there was such a thing – or too ugly. If they were kind she saw them as weak. If they were too quiet she regarded them as boring. Regina hadn’t the foggiest idea when (or where) her friend would find her prince, but she did know one thing: he’d best be positively perfect or else Kitty was going to inevitably find something wrong with him.
She closed her wardrobe after successfully locating a matching set of silk stockings. Embroidered at the top with blue bows, they were one tiny part of the gargantuan wardrobe that had arrived two weeks ago without notice.
One moment she was taking a nap and the next she was watching, jaw hanging open, as trunk after trunk after trunk was hauled into her room and everything from hair ribbons to ball gowns were pulled out and put away.
There’d been a missive from the duke. One she’d read and reread and then read again, even though it was only two sentences long.
You are a duchess now. Please dress accordingly.
A.
Inadvertently her gaze flicked to her writing desk where she’d tucked the note – it wasn’t even long enough to be considered a letter – between the pages of Mansfield Park. The book that had started it all and one she’d been unable to bring herself to read, despite it being her favorite, since that night.
Since the night.
The night she kissed a duke…and she liked it. So much so that when she found herself backed against a wall by Lady Emmeline – both figuratively and literally – she’d blurted out two little words that had since had enormous repercussions.
We’re engaged.
“You’ll find your perfect husband soon.” She smiled faintly at Kitty. “He will be handsome, titled, and wealthy enough to buy you whatever you desire. He’ll be everything you want.”
“You mean everything I need,” Kitty corrected.
“Don’t be so sure about that,” said Regina, her smile slowly fading.
She had all of those things. She’d married a duke, for heaven’s sakes. She had fulfilled every debutante’s dream. She had a bigger allowance than she knew what to do with. An enormous manor. So many clothes she couldn’t possibly wear them all in this lifetime. And yet the only thing she truly needed was one the thing she didn’t have.
Andrew’s love.
“How was your wedding night? Was it quick? Did it hurt?” Incapable of sitting still for any length of time, Kitty bounced lightly on her toes. “Emma told me the sheets were flecked with blood after her husband was through. Which is good, I suppose, since we both know Emma wasn’t exactly the virginal type.” Her eyebrows wiggled suggestively. “As if the whole affair isn’t awkward enough – honestly, who really knows what is supposed to go where? – there has to be bleeding on top of it all. Awful. Just awful.” She draped a dramatic hand across her brow. “Tell me everything, Gina. Spare no details. I can take it.”
A blush overwhelmed Regina’s cheeks. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“There’s no need to be embarrassed. It’s a natural act. No one talks about it, but everyone’s doing it, or else how would you and I have gotten here? As much as my mother would like me to believe my brothers and I showed up one day under a cabbage patch leaf, I’m rather certain that’s not how it happened. Maybe for John,” she mused, tapping her chin. “He’s always been a little different than the rest of us.”
“I’m not embarrassed. It’s just that…” Regina huffed out a breath. “There’s nothing to tell.”
Kitty’s eyes widened. “You mean–”
“There was no wedding night.” There. She’d said. Crossing to the window she gripped the sill and stared blindly out at the field beyond. “He couldn’t get me in the carriage fast enough after the ceremony was over. It brought me straight here, and I haven’t seen him since. You’re the first person I’ve talked to who isn’t a servant in three months.”
“But that’s awful!” her friend cried.
“Yes,” Regina whispered, pressing her nose to the warm glass. “It is.”
By saving her sisters, she had inadvertently trapped herself in a cage of her own making: a loveless marriage. And what made it truly awful – what made it worse than she ever imagined – was that she loved Andrew. Or at least, she loved the man he’d been on the night they met.
The sweet, courteous gentleman who had made her laugh and left a ball to go off in search of a book he’d never heard of. The knight in shining armor who had defended her against a catty trio of vicious-tongued vipers. The stormy-eyed rake who had yanked her into his arms and kissed her until she saw stars. That man she fancied herself head-over-heels for. But he didn’t love her, and if there was anything she’d learned as a voracious reader of everything romantic it was that there was nothing more painful than unrequited love.
“Well this won’t do. This won’t do at all.” Kitty clapped her hands briskly together. “The marriage needs to be consummated, Gina. Or else he could have it annulled and then where would you be?”
“That’s actually not true.” Rubbing away the smudge her nose had left on the window, Regina turned. “There are only three circumstances upon which a husband can legally ask the court for an annulment, and lack of consummation is not one of them.”
“Are you certain?” Kitty asked, her brow creasing.
“Positive.”
“How odd. I could have sworn…In either case, you need to have a wedding night and soon, before he leaves you to rusticate in the country forever. Fresh air is all well and good, but you need to be in London when the Season begins. You’re not a wallflower any longer, Gina. You’re a duchess. People will be clambering to be granted an audience with you.”
“Everyone except my husband,” Regina said with the dry wisp of a smile.
“Precisely why you have to win his favor.”
“And how do you suggest I do that?”
“Woo him,” Kitty said matter-of-factly.
“Woo him?”
“Woo him. Just like one of the heroines in those silly books you’re always reading. Honestly, I do wonder how it is you’re married and I’m not. But not to worry.” Kitty clapped her hands together. “We’ll have the duke eating out of the palm of your hand before the month is through. And this is how we’re going to do it…”
“You’re off your game,” Byron Thomas Johnson, Duke of Wakefield, noted when Andrew’s billiard shot when wide and the ball he’d struck with his mace rolled to a stop a good six inches short of the pocket he’d been aiming for. “I’d say marriage doesn’t seem to be agreeing with you, Glenmoore.”
Growling under his breath, Andrew took his mace and stalked over to the bar where he refilled his glass of brandy. By the time he’d finished it Byron had ended the game by expertly potting each ball in swift succession.
�
��Again?” Byron asked, lifting a russet brow. A shade lighter than his auburn hair (the color came courtesy of a distant Scottish relative that had managed to sneak his way onto the family tree by way of a secret affair), his thick brows framed intelligent green eyes and softened a countenance that tended towards severity. A light-hearted man the Duke of Wakefield was not, mostly due to a strict upbringing with a father who’d been overly fond of beating perfection into his only son and heir. The frightened boy determined to please his malicious sire had grown into a cynical bastard. He had no wife, few friends, and – with the exception of the yearly ball he hosted to appease his three sisters – kept mostly to himself.
“Sod off,” Andrew muttered into his empty glass. He fancied another, but not the headache that would inevitably come with it, which was why he poured himself a chalice of port instead. Carrying it over to the velvet upholstered chairs at the far end of the gaming room, he sank down and kicked up his heels onto a small table. After retrieving his drink Byron joined him, his mouth twisting into a wry smirk as he sat across from Andrew and lifted his glass in the air.
“To small victories and large-breasted women.”
Ignoring the toast, Andrew sipped his port and scowled at a painting hanging above Byron’s head “Are we still hunting grouse tomorrow?”
“That depends. How much longer do you plan to avoid your bride? You were at your estate for less than a day before you came running over here like a rat fleeing a sinking ship. Surely she can’t be that bad.” Byron crossed his legs at the knee and leaned back in his chair. “I caught a glimpse of her at the wedding. She’s a pretty enough chit. You know I prefer brunettes, but you could do a sight worse.”
The Summer Duke (A Duke for All Seasons Book 3) Page 4
