Page 35 of The Duke and the Wrong Bride

Charlotte suppressed another groan. Her father wasn’t making this easy on her, but she also supposed that was the point. Rumors of the Duke’s past were well known, and he hadn’t even denied them to her. But she liked to think that they were just that, in the past. A point that tonight might have proven if she was able to show her parents how well she and the Duke were getting along. But the barbs and arrows her father continued to launch in the Duke’s direction were testing him, and she could see it on his face.

Henry didn’t like being questioned. He especially didn’t likehis characterto be brought into question. And the more her father poked at him, the more uncomfortable and tense he became.

It was lucky then that the food was served at that moment. The doors to the kitchens suddenly flew open and a host of footmen swept into the room, carrying trays laden with baked vegetables, grilled meats, and assortments of bread to pair it all with. As expected, this captured her father’s attention as he spun about and began to point at what he wanted on his plate while motioning that his goblet of wine needed to be refilled.

Charlotte caught Henry’s eyes across the table. She grimaced at him, a silent apology, and he rolled his eyes and shook his head. A small gesture, but it told her at least that he was able to look past her family’s antics. At least for now.

“At least the food is good!” Her father chuckled as he began to tear into a leg of turkey. “Your Grace! Remind me to try and steal your kitchen staff away from you!”

“You can try, but I won’t let them go. Not for anything.”

“Another daughter, perhaps?” her father joked and gestured to Hannah, who was busy keeping the twins occupied. She glanced up, and her eyes went wide in panic. “She’s but sixteen, only a few years from?—”

“Phineas!” her mother snapped.

“I’m only joking, dear. Although…” He tore into the meat and then spoke thickly. “If the Duke’s appetite is even half of what I’ve heard, I dare say—” He paused as he tried to chew… no, that wasn’t what he was doing at all. His eyes went wide, and his cheeks began to turn red as he pounded on his chest.

“Phineas?” her mother asked. “Are you all right?”

Her father coughed and sputtered. He pounded on his chest and reached for his wine, attempted to use it to flush down whatever he had swallowed, but it spilled all over his front.

“Phineas!”

“Father!” Charlotte leaped to her feet, but the Duke was quicker.

As her father literally choked before her, making a real scene of it, the Duke rounded the table, lifted him under the shoulders, and wrapped his arms around her father’s stomach. Her father coughed and sputtered, his face turning purple as Henry heaved and lifted him off the ground, clenching his big arms around her father’s ample waist and then pushing in as if her father were a pair of bellows in a smithery.

He did this two more times, the second of which saw a chunk of meat the size of Charlotte’s palm launch across the table and land right in front of Nathanial. Silence rang across the dining room, no one sure what to say or how to say it. Her father, especially, looked mortified, and that wasn’t to mention her mother!

But Nathanial, not at all sure what had happened, poked at the half-chewed piece of turkey and turned up his nose. “I don’t want turkey,” he said seriously. “I don’t like it.”

Hannah was the first to laugh. A quick snort. And she tried to cover her nose but couldn’t keep it from escaping. Next was Charlotte’s mother, who erupted into a fit of giggles as Stephen stabbed a fork into the piece of turkey and put it on his plate, as if to eat it.

Then Henry started to laugh, deep rumbles in his chest, which sent Charlotte into hysterics. And finally, Charlotte’s father, now able to see the funny side, burst into laughter so loud and over the top that tears began to stream down his face.

For a good two minutes, the entire table laughed and laughed and laughed at what had happened. Henry slapped Charlotte’s father on the back. Charlotte’s father pretended to shovel more food down his gullet. Her mother slapped at him and wiped her tears away. And Charlotte, still laughing, breathed a huge sigh of relief at the break in tension.

The dinner had started awkwardly, not at all what she had wanted. But once the laughter subsided and everyone settled in, it began in a new direction. The conversation turned pleasant. Her father eased back on his complaints. Henry was able to relax and show the side of himself that Charlotte had started to see the last few days. And all in all, it turned into a wonderful night.

By the time it was over, around the point the plates of food were being cleared, Charlotte met her husband’s eyes and smiled at him. He rolled his eyes at her, but his smile was bigger than the one she wore, and she knew that he had no regrets about inviting them. What was more, her parents finally seemed to understand that this marriage was more than one of convenience. Why, it even had as much potential as their own.

* * *

“Thank you for tonight,” Charlotte said to Henry the moment they stepped back inside. They’d just come from bidding her parents farewell, standing together and waving as the carriage took off down the drive, presenting the perfect picture of a marriage in full bloom.

“There’s nothing to thank me for,” he assured her as they walked slowly across the foyer.

They weren’t holding hands as they had been, and she wanted so desperately to reach out and take his hand.

“There is.” She stepped in front of him, turned around, and forced him to stop. “My father was?—”

“Excitable.”

“Rude,” she corrected. “So very rude. And for no good reason.”

“Oh, he had his reasons,” Henry said with a soft chuckle. “The truth is, I was expecting it.”

“You were?” She leaned back, surprised.

---