Page 70 of The Duke and the Unwanted Bride

“I am sure that is not true…”

He chuckled bitterly. “I have always been a cold man. Not by choice, but it is simply my way. And while I tried not to be that with her, she treated me as if I were a stranger in my own home. It made it impossible to forge any sort of bond until, eventually, the two of us stopped talking. We would stand in the same room and simply pretend the other did not exist…”

His stomach churned as memories from a time he wished to forget flashed in his mind.

“But Amelia…?”

“My wife knew her duty, and we lay together until she fell pregnant. Funny that I thought once Amelia was born, things might change, that she might see that there was a chance at happiness with me. But she died in childbirth, and we were never given that chance.”

“Oh, Frederick…” Hannah shifted closed to him and kissed his hand. “I am so sorry.”

That wasn’t the end of the story. There was one more chapter, the one that still haunted Frederick to this day—the true reason for his pledge to never love again, to never touch the woman he married, to keep his distance because it felt safest.

“As my wife lay dying,” he continued, his voice dropping, darkness seeming to envelop the room, “she did say one thing to me. Barely conscious, barely alive, she made sure to say one last thing so that there would be no mistaking how she felt.”

Hannah hesitated. “What… what did she say.”

“That she hated me,” Frederick sighed. “She told me that she hated me and that she always had. Our daughter had been born for less than a minute, and rather than asking to see her, she made sure to tell me that.” His lip curled. “From the moment we met to the moment she was taken from this world, she despised me to my core, and for that reason…” he trailed off as the pain began to roll over him.

Hannah did not speak at first. Still holding his hand. Still looking at him. She pondered the story he had just told, caught between wanting to comfort him further and press him for more details.

And even before she spoke, he knew what was coming, and he hated it.

“That it awful,” Hannah said. “Truly, I cannot even imagine…” She sniffed and kissed his hand again. “But, Frederick, I do understand why you might not want anything from this marriage —I do. But surely, now you can see that our situation is not the same.” A soft chuckle. “I do not hate you. I certainly do not despise you. And if we were to have a child together, I know that it would only bring us closer together. You must see that.”

He did. On the face of it, everything she said made sense. But for six years now, Frederick had lived with the burden of trapping a woman in a loveless marriage, forcing her to conceive a child, and then watching as she died. For six years, he had felt guilt for what had happened, swearing that if he was to marry again, he would not burden his new wife with the same expectation.That his marriage would be one of convenience, giving her the freedom to have the life that his previous wife never had.

“I know,” he spoke into his chest, looking down because he could not bring himself to look at Hannah.

“Then why…?”

“As I said, it is not so easy to explain.”

“But you have explained it,” Hannah pressed. “And while I understand your initial reservations, I am not your ex-wife. I want this, and…” She hesitated. “I think you want it, too.”

He shook his head. “And I told you, I cannot.”

“Butwhy?”

He had no answer to that. None that made sense. Guilt that he could not explain. A feeling that if he was to have a child with Hannah, it would be the beginning of the end for them. A promise he had made that he refused to break. Perhaps from stubbornness? Perhaps from superstition? Or perhaps because he was just scared.

“I have told you why…” Slowly, he pulled away from her and rose from the sofa.

“Frederick—” She went to take his hand.

“Please!” He pulled it away, still turned away from her. “This is not about you, Hannah. I told you from the beginning what I wanted, and…” His body was shaking. “And my hope was—is… I hope that you can respect my wish.”

He then forced himself to take a final look at her, seeing the pain on her face, wincing because it hurt him as much as it did her.

He knew it made no sense. He knew that he should have sat and spoken with her, made her see, or at least given himself a chance to see her side. But Frederick had always been stubborn, and with the memories of his past marriage crashing over him like waves, he felt as if he was about to fall into a bottomless pit from which he would never return.

He grabbed a blanket, covered himself, and stumbled out of the room. When he reached the door, he gave Hannah a final pleading, regretful look. If he walked out the door right now, he knew that to come back would be near impossible, that she might never forgive him, that he would only be doing to this marriage what he had done to the last…

But he walked out anyway.

This marriage was only ever meant to be for convenience, and now, it seemed, that is what it had become once more.

Chapter Twenty

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