Page 13 of A Virgin for the Cruel Duke

“Then understand this,” he said, stepping a little closer to her and watching her eyes swing up to fix on his face. There was a color now on her cheeks, color that reminded him of how she flushed in pleasure, how she moved beneath him. “I will have you at breakfast with the family every morning from now on starting with tomorrow. It is not optional.”

She blinked, her eyes big with surprise. “If that is what you want.”

“It is,” he said. He wanted many things from her, but he walked on before he could be tempted to tell her them.

CHAPTER 6

“You beast, Herbert, I was going to have that bun!”

“Don’t worry, sis, I’m sure that cook can bring more out if the need is desperate.”

“It’s notdesperate, it’sa point of justice.” Diana frowned at her brother scoldingly as he tried to fit as much of the stolen bun into his mouth as he could. “You’ve had twice as many as I have!”

“I rule that Diana is correct,” Stephen said drolly from the head of the table. “And find Herbert in contempt of breakfasting politeness. You shall forfeit your plums to her this instant.”

Elizabeth sat quietly with a warm, sweet coffee in front of her and several small pieces of toast. It was like this every morning now. She had been coming to breakfast since Stephen had ordered her to last week and her heart hurt a little more every day at how comfortable this family was with each other.

She was even beginning to get to know them all a little. Herbert was nearly as tall as Stephen, but more wiry and he was quick-witted and stubborn. She could tell how protective he was over his family and how much he hated having her in their home from the way he watched her every movement out of the corner of his eyes.

Selina was a surprise, Elizabeth had heard Lottie and Rose talk about her before, insinuating that she was an ugly old maid or a man-hating revolutionary. She was a very handsome young woman, a little younger than Elizabeth herself and very fierce in her opinions. Elizabeth had often seen her wandering the estate with a book or writing furiously in a study or going out to meet friends anddiscuss.

And finally there was Diana, barely eighteen, beautiful and round-faced with a constant shy smile and sunny disposition. Elizabeth couldn’t help but long to be Diana’s friend and loathed the fact that she could see her youngest sister-in-law’s painful shyness any time they spoke.

What kind of monstrous things did they think she thought about them? What damage would the feud between their families carry on into their home life now?

Of all of them it was her husband that was the greatest mystery. He was kind and funny with his siblings, but she only ever saw him at breakfast. He never approached her outside of the meal, she never saw him nor had he come by her chambers again. It had surprised her at first, as she had been ready for that battle to begin anew, but now she was just confused. What was thislife she was living and who was this man who would hold to his promise so firmly instead of taking what he could demand, what belonged to him by every right of law.

“Sir, I protest that plums are too high a price to pay for a bun!” Herbert was saying in a dramatic tone while Selina threw tiny pieces of bread at him from her corner.

Stephen tsked and stopped the bread throwing with a gesture and a shake of his head. “Please have a mind for the maid,” he said firmly. “And as for you, Herbert, I fear you should have considered the penalties before robbing your own, dear sister!”

“Woe, woe is upon me,” Herbert cried, piling plums onto Diana’s plate and pretending not to notice as she shoved them back into his pockets. “I shall go out to the streets and starve!”

“With half of the baked goods of England in your stomach?” Selina demanded, causing Diana to giggle and Herbert to grin impishly.

They were so bright and joyous in the mornings, their conversations were so friendly and fun and Elizabeth wished so hard that she could join in. There seemed to be an invisible wall between her and the rest of the family, a different wall than there had been at home, a new and seemingly just as impossible wall to scale. Every time she opened her mouth she could see how suspicious they were of her and even though she had told herself she would not let it affect her, it only served to remind her how tenuous her position was.

Any moment her husband might decide that she wasn’t worth the trouble and might decide to cast her away or shut her away or banish her.

This was more freedom than she had ever had in her life and she was terrified that she might lose it.

“Order, order,” Stephen called, settling the family down. “Assuming that everyone has supped their fill, may I ask that the family attempt to keep disruptions to a minimum today as I have an important meeting with my accountant in my office and I do not want to be disturbed.”

It made her heart ache with how much she wanted to be inside instead of outside the wall. She wanted this, this easy acceptance and love. It was so much harder seeing what a family could truly be like and knowing that even what her family had been to each other had fallen far short of the mark.

As Elizabeth finished her toast she noticed that Diana was casting glances her way, eyes flicking to her and back to her plate as though she were afraid of being spotted.

Elizabeth was sure that Diana had a secret.

Every day she snuck away from the breakfast table and went away somewhere in the estate. She didn’t return for some time and the times that Elizabeth saw her return she had been flushed and furtive.

The plates were being cleared away as Elizabeth saw Diana stand and slip out of the room once again and this time she decided she would find out exactly what was going on with this one, almost definitely harmless, mystery.

By the time she had tracked down Diana she had gone into seven wrong rooms, surprised three maids and had an extremely awkward conversation with a gardener who had thought she was trying to inspect his roses and kept trying to take her outside.

For all that she was an outsider within the family, the servants certainly tried to impress and please her which was a feeling that Elizabeth was not used to yet.

It was the sound of singing that drew her attention to a small music room towards the east of the ground floor. It wasn’t a room that she had been in before and she was a little anxious about sliding the door open and peeking inside, however her curiosity was so strong by this point that she felt she must expire if she did not find out immediately what was happening.

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