“You don’t love me at all,” she repeated. Tears of humiliation filled her eyes. How could she have come to care so much for him in such a short amount of time and he cared for her naught at all? “But you just said you – you wanted us to be friends. You said you wanted to improve things.”
“And I do,” he said quickly. “You’re a sweet woman, Regina, and I think we can get on splendidly without any unnecessary emotions to cloud our relationship.”
“I don’t understand what that means.” A loose tendril flew across her temple as she shook her head in frustration. “What does that mean?”
“It means that when we happen to be together at a social function, we shall emulate a happily married couple. Because that’s what we’ll be. And when we’re apart, we’ll carry on with our own separate lives. I enjoy living in London and plan on keeping my own townhouse there separate from our manor. If you’d like to do the same you need only ask and I shall buy you whatever home you desire. Or if you’d like you can remain here, in the country. It makes no difference to me.”
Regina felt as if he was speaking a different language. One where she only understand every third or fourth word. He wanted them to be a happily married couple in public, but not in private? For the benefit of whom? Certainly not them, for she could think of nothing worse than pretending to be one thing while actually being something completely different behind closed doors. “But I don’t want to live separately. I want to live with you. As your wife.”
“You’ll still be my wife. Regina, please try to–”
“But not your duchess. That’s what you said in the library, isn’t it?” A single tear trickled down her cheek and she dashed it angrily away. “You said I’d be your wife but never your duchess. I didn’t understand what you meant then, but I think I do now.”
“Regina,” he called out when she spun on her heel. “Regina, get back here!”
Ignoring him, she strode from the parlor and slammed the door shut behind her. Leaning back against the hard wood she closed her eyes and drew a ragged breath, only to exhale it on a muffled sob.
“Gina?” Kitty called from the drawing room. “Is that you?”
Not wanting anyone to see her like this, Regina ran up the stairs two at a time, locked her bedchamber, and threw herself upon the mattress to cry out her misery alone.
“She must have gone upstairs.” With a bewildered shrug Kitty ducked back into the drawing room and smiled at the Duke of Wakefield. He didn’t smile back. “How long do you plan to stay?” she inquired politely.
“Until Glenmoore is settled. I’m only a half mile’s ride to the east. My estate borders his,” he explained at her questioning glance. Picking up a crystal trinket from the mantle above the fireplace Byron turned it over in his hand before setting it back down. “That’s how I found him.”
“He’s fortunate you were riding close enough to hear his shouts. You saved his life.” She batted her lashes. “Some might even call you a hero.”
“Indeed.”
Kitty pressed her lips together. She could woo a tree with one arm tied behind her back, yet despite her best efforts Wakefield seemed completely impervious to her charms. A genuine pity, as he checked off every single box on the long, extensive list she kept tucked in the back of her wedding trousseau.
He was handsome.
Wealthy.
Titled.
Well dressed.
And his breath didn’t smell.
Unless he was managing to hide a major flaw, Wakefield was the perfect man and the best husband prospect she’d stumbled upon in ages. Not to mention he was a duke and heaven knew those were few and far between despite popping up in almost every single one of Regina’s beloved books with alarming regularity.
Tapping a finger against her chin, she glided past him to the piano, making sure she got just close enough for him to smell her perfume before she leaned over the glossy mahogany lid in such a way that shamelessly showed her breasts to their best advantage.
“It’s unfortunate we did not have an opportunity to meet at your ball, Your Grace.” She rested her chin in the palm of her hand. “We might have found ourselves in a similar situation to our friends.”
His gaze raked across her, lingered on her bosom, and then moved deliberately away to a painting hanging between two windows. In the painting a pack of hounds crested a hill, the huntsmen in red at their heels while a small orange fox darted into the underbrush. “I highly doubt that,” he drawled.
“And why might that be?” she cooed.
“Because I wasn’t there.”
Kitty blinked. “You weren’t at your own ball?”
“No.”
“Well…why not?”
Cold blue eyes met hers. “Because I disdain them, along with anyone who finds whirling around a room for hours on end a suitable means of entertainment. Now if you’ll excuse me I have better things to do than spend my time in the company of a duke-hunting debutante who couldn’t make her advances anymore painfully obvious if she tried.”
Duke-hunting debutante?
It had a nice ring to it, she’d give him that. Almost as nice as the curve of his buttocks as he bent down to tie one of his boots. As if he could feel her hungry gaze upon him he turned and scowled at her, thick brows gathering like an angry autumn storm cloud above the bridge of his nice. Kitty grinned back, completely unashamed to have been caught staring at his arse. Men – excluding this one – had quite literally spent half the conversation staring down the front of her dress as if somehow her eyes had attached themselves to her nipples.
Why couldn’t she do the same? A male specimen who was as physically fit as Wakefield deserved to be studied. Preferably in the nude (for artistic purposes only, of course) but she’d make do with what she had.
“Are you quite done staring?” he said coolly.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
She winked. “On if you’re done bending over.”
Wakefield’s eyes widened as his mouth opened, then snapped close. With a snarl that sounded more wolfish than man he spun on his heel and marched from the room, slamming the door forcibly behind him in a message that couldn’t have been clearer: Leave me the hell alone.
Too bad (for him) that he didn’t happen to glance over his shoulder before he quit the room, for he would have seen Kitty’s impish smirk held a message all its own.
Challenge accepted.
Chapter Nine
What would Elizabeth Bennett do?
It was the first question Regina asked herself the next morning when she awoke with a throat dry from crying too many tears, puffy eyes, and a newfound sense of determination. Kitty continued to snore softly beside her as she swung out of bed. They’d eaten chocolate and drank wine into the wee hours of the night (well, Kitty had done most of the drinking) and Regina wouldn’t be surprised if her friend slept well past noon.
As for herself, she’d risen with the pretty yellow finches chirping outside the window. For several long minutes she’d considered simply pulling the coverlet over her head and going back to sleep. It’s what almost any wife would have done had she been passionately kissed and then subsequently dismissed. But it wasn’t what Elizabeth Bennett would have done, which was why Regina splashed cold water on her face, put on a satin wrapper over her nightdress, and stole silently from the room.
Her bare feet stepped across streaks of dappled sunlight as she cut through the foyer on her way to the parlor. No one else was awake save the kitchen staff and a handful of scullery maids, and they all discreetly looked the other way when the Duchess of Glenmoore slipped into her husband’s temporary bedchamber.
The room was dark, the curtains drawn. Nibbling her bottom lip and shifting her weight from one heel to the other, Regina considered fleeing back up the stairs and into bed. But once more she found herself bolstered by the courageous spirit of her favorite fictional heroine, and so – inwardly steeling herself for Andrew’s reaction, which she
suspected was not to be favorable – she set about the arduous task of opening the heavy drapes.
“What the devil is going on? Grieves, close the damn curtains.” Throwing a hand up in front of his face as light spilled across his bed, Andrew squinted blearily at Regina. When he saw it was his wife in the parlor and not his butler, his brown eyes widened in shock and she would have giggled at his expression had her stomach not been tied in knots. “What…what are you doing here?”
“I thought we might have breakfast together.” Opening the last of the drapes with a flick of her wrists, she peeked back at Andrew over her shoulder. He still look tired, but the gray pallor was gone from his skin and the bandage on his leg remained neatly wrapped, indicating the injury hadn’t bothered him over the night. “How are you feeling?”
“Sore,” he said warily as he pushed himself into a sitting position and leaned back against the headboard. His hair stuck out in dark tufts, making him appear younger and oddly vulnerable. “But the pain is negligible compared to what it felt like yesterday. Speaking of which–”
“I do not wish to discuss yesterday,” she said firmly. “I wish to have breakfast. Do you prefer your eggs poached or soft boiled?”
“Poached. But why are you–”
“Poached it is. I shall return in a moment.” Her heart hammering, she hurried from the parlor and closed the door behind her. But this time she didn’t fall against it with tears pouring down her cheeks. This time she stood tall. And she continued to stand tall when she returned to her husband’s bedchamber with a heavy tray filled with poached eggs and warm pieces of toast slathered in jam and four pieces of crispy bacon. Because that’s what Lizzy Bennett would have done.
Lizzy didn’t run from her problems. And she hadn’t run from Mr. Darcy. Yes, she’d refused his initial proposal, but in doing so she’d displayed her strengths, not her weaknesses. She had stood up for herself and what she believed to be right, but most of all she had stood up for her heart and Regina was ready to do the same.
“I thought we might spend some time together while your leg is healing.” Careful not to look at Andrew she poured them both a glass of freshly squeezed lemonade and slid his across the small card table she’d had one of the footmen set up beside the bed. “I know you prefer to spend your time in London, but as you will be unable to travel for the next few weeks I hoped you wouldn’t mind a bit of company. You don’t, do you?” Now she glanced up and met his gaze unabashedly, green eyes glistening brightly beneath a thick sweep of honey blonde lashes. “Mind, that is.”
“No,” Andrew said gruffly. “I don’t mind the company. But I don’t want you to think this will change anything between us.”
She arched a brow. “Now why would I think that?”
Over the next several weeks Andrew and Regina spent most, if not all, of their days together. They’d enjoy breakfast in the parlor, then she would wheel him out in a chair specifically created to comfortably hold his large frame for a walk along the garden paths. In the heat of summer with sunlight on their faces and a cool breeze on their backs, they talked and laughed and learned about each other.
They discovered small, inconsequential things such as Andrew’s favorite color (blue) and Regina’s favorite food (anything not covered in French sauce) and discussed broader topics that sometimes caught them at odds, such as politics and religion. Occasionally they argued, but their disagreements were short-lived and almost always ended with a kiss. Quick and brief and nothing compared to their previous kisses, but a kiss nevertheless.
It was the courtship they’d never had the opportunity to enjoy and it was wonderful. Better than even Regina, with all of her romantic stories, could have imagined. And even though they were both very careful to never discuss anything to do with love, she could feel her heart expanding every morning she came downstairs and Andrew was in bed waiting for her.
She smiled more in those three weeks than she had in the past three years. Years that had been filled with sorrow and hurt and unimaginable pain as she said goodbye to the only man who had ever understood her and married a man who seemed not to know her at all. Yet despite his icy detachment at the beginning of their marriage, Andrew was nothing but kind and thoughtful and sweet when they tossed crumbs to the ducks in the pond or watched a young colt run circles around its dam or caught fireflies late at night on the south lawn.
Her husband was everything he’d been when they first kissed in the library. And although she’d fallen in love with him then, those emotions paled in comparison to how she felt about him now. Which was why, perhaps, it hurt so much more than she ever expected on the morning she came downstairs and found a stack of trunks piled high outside of the parlor door.
“Mr. Grieves,” she asked the butler, her brows lifting in puzzlement. “What’s happening?”
“His Grace feels well enough to travel to London,” said Mr. Grieves without expression. “I’ve been asked to have a carriage readied and some of his personal belongings, clothes and the like, packed up.”
“But…but he never mentioned such a trip to me.” Her heart in her throat, her pulse thrumming in her ears, Regina dashed past the butler and stopped short at the sight that awaited her when she entered the parlor.
The drapes had already been opened. A plate of eggs and toast, long since picked over, sat on a tray in the corner. And her husband, fully dressed in a waistcoat, trousers, and jacket, stood next to the bed with the help of a cane.
“Regina.” He turned at the sound of her distressed mewl and smiled broadly, oblivious to the pain and shock that held her rooted to the floor. “Good, you’re here. I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye.”
“You – you’re leaving?” Incredulous, she forced her wooden legs to take one step forward, then another. They carried her to the middle of the room where she stood like a frozen pillar in the middle of a wild, stormy sea.
“Yes. As soon as my trunks are carried out to the carriage,” he said briskly. “One of Wakefield’s mares is running tomorrow morning at Abingdon, then we’re traveling on to London.”
“How…how long do you plan on staying?” And how can you be so calm, she wondered, when you’re tearing my heart in half?
“I’m not sure yet. A month, maybe more. I may just stay until the start of the Season. I haven’t decided yet.” He tried to tie his cravat with one hand, but it was a difficult task even with two, and with a frustrated sigh he looked to Regina. “Would you mind?”
She remained where she was. “But the Season doesn’t begin again until the middle of October and it’s only July.”
“I’m aware of when the Season begins and I – Regina,” he frowned, only now seeming to notice that something was deeply amiss. “What’s the matter?”
“You’re leaving,” she repeated, except this time it wasn’t a question. “How could you plan to leave, and not tell me?”
“I am telling you.” Giving up on the cravat, he cast it aside and regarded her with a furrowed brow. “It will only be for a few weeks, four months at the most.”
“Four months is a significant amount of time!” she cried. “Why wouldn’t – why wouldn’t you think to invite me to come with you?”
His shoulders stiffened. “I wasn’t aware you liked horse racing.”
“I don’t like horse racing, you dolt! But I like you. No, no,” she muttered, more to herself than to him, “I won’t hide it any longer. I love you, Andrew. There. I said it. I love you, and it’s not a fraud, or a fake, and I’m not a poet trying to make money on a fabricated idea!”
Behind Regina the butler discreetly closed the door. Neither she nor Andrew noticed.
“I know we’ve grown closer over the past few weeks,” he began, his hand knuckling around the top of his cane, “but it doesn’t change my–”
“Closer,” she interrupted bitterly. “Is that what you’d call it? Because it has another name, you know. Love. We’ve fallen in love, Andrew, and it doesn’t hurt us to admit it!”
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br /> “This,” he exclaimed, slamming his cane into the floor. “This is exactly what I was trying to avoid! I don’t want the dramatics or the emotion or the guilt.”
“But that’s what a marriage is supposed to be! Don’t you see? It is dramatic and emotional and sometimes you do feel guilty when you hurt someone you love.” She hugged her arms to her chest in a desperate attempt to stem the bleeding. “But you also feel happy. You feel joy. You feel as if you could conquer the world with the person you love by your side. And yes, sometimes it’s messy. And sometimes it’s hard. And sometimes things go wrong. But you get through those things together. Not as business partners, but as husband and wife. Be my husband,” she begged, her voice cracking with unshed tears. “Please, Andrew. Just be my husband.”
“I’m going to London. We’ll discuss this when I return.” Favoring his leg, he limped around her and Regina, her heart in a thousand shattered pieces at her feet, could do nothing but watch him leave.
Andrew made it halfway to the carriage before he stopped.
What the devil am I doing? He asked himself harshly.
Better yet, what the devil had he done?
He’d just hurt the only woman who had ever meant anything to him. The woman who meant everything to him. And for what reason? For stubbornness? For pride? To prove he was right even though he knew he was wrong?
He was a bastard. A selfish, arrogant bully. And if he didn’t fix things right now, he knew one thing with absolute certainty: he was going to regret it for the rest of his life.
“Regina! Bloody hell.” He bellowed her name and cursed his broken leg in the same breath as he tried to hurry back inside. “Regina, wait!”
She wasn’t in the foyer, nor did he see her in the parlor. Frantic, he started to hobble down the hallway towards the back gardens, but Grieves caught him before he made it to the French doors.
The Summer Duke (A Duke for All Seasons Book 3) Page 8
