Page 49 of Wedded to the Ruthless Duke

“I hate him,” Grace muttered to herself as she strode back into the ballroom. She’d fixed her hair and straightened her gown as much as she could, but nothing could calm the erratic racing of her heart nor the aftershocks of what he had done to her body. She didn’t know such a feeling could exist, least of all that Philip could be the cause of it. “I despise him,” she muttered again as she marched across the ballroom.

She snatched up a glass of champagne from a passing server, trying not to breathe too fast or heavily as she looked around in search of him. She was trying to persuade herself that she did hate Philip, that she couldn’t stand him, yet her eyes were hungry for him, trying desperately to seek out where he was.

At last, she found him. He was talking in a low tone to his friend and his mother on the far side of the room.

Once again, he was the perfect picture of propriety. His suit wasn’t even creased from what they had done, his cravat perfectly positioned, his sleeves taut. She doubted if she told anyone of what had happened between them, they would believe it. One glance at Philip, and he was perfectly regal and distant.

Look my way. Please.

Yet he did not. His focus was only for his friend and his mother.

“Well, it’s quite an event, is it not?” a familiar voice called, arriving at her side.

Grace looked around, praying once more her heart would stop beating so fast as Celia appeared beside her. Like her, Celia had a glass of champagne clutched in her hand from which she was drinking most liberally with a big smile.

“Grace, dear friend.” Celia reached out and took her free hand. “I am sorry indeed that my dare rushed you into a marriage, but from what I saw earlier today, the way he looked at you on the altar…” She looked away, straight at Philip across the room, bearing a most thoughtful expression. “Perhaps there is a brighter future yet to come.”

“What do you mean?” Grace asked. As far as she was concerned, Philip had been distant at that altar: wooden, stiff, cool. He’d been nothing like the heated passion she had just experienced in his study.

He is a man of two halves of ice and fire, and it feels like both could burn me up!

“He barely looked at me!” Grace scoffed, trying her best to keep the anger out of her voice. Clearly, she failed, for Celia eyed her cautiously. “His attention was fixedly on the priest. He felt fully the vows he was making to his deathbed, did he not?”

“That’s what you saw? A man going to a condemned life?” Celia laughed, shaking her head. “Strange, you and I saw different things.”

“Oh? What did you see?” Grace asked, finding herself quite desperate to know.

“Well, let me let you into a little secret.” Celia linked their arms and stepped closer to her, whispering in her ear. “When everyone else at a wedding turn to watch the bride enter, I’m afraid I break the mold. I look at the groom.” She smiled broadly. “I saw his face as you appeared in that gown. It was momentary, perhaps, a weakness before he could adopt his cool exterior again.”

“He is always cool and cold,” Grace muttered.

“Is he?” Celia asked with a knowing smile.

Grace felt the blush rage across her cheeks, burning her.

No, he’s not.

It was as if Celia knew what had just taken place between the pair of them without having to ask about it or hear any clue of it.

“Something in his gaze as he looked at you told me there is much more to the Duke of Berkley than we think. Would it be so awful, Grace, if the Duke didn’t just marry you to save your reputation?”

Grace snorted at Celia’s suggestion.

“That is mad,” Grace said, shaking her head. “Celia, Philip was backed into a corner to marry me. You know that as well as I do.”

“Well, it’s just —”

“That is the way it was,” Grace said sharply. Something in her chest was squirming, some sort of fear and anger building at the picture Celia had created, for Grace knew it could not be true. As tempting as it was to hope that Philip felt something more for her, it could not be possible. “He married me to save both our reputations because a reputation is what matters to him most.”

Celia was no longer smiling. Her lips were pressed firmly together in a line, and there was a glint of sadness in her eyes.

“Philip would care no more for me than he would any other woman in his life. Of that, I am quite certain.”

“Maybe in time, things will change,” Celia whispered.

Grace lifted her glass to her lips and downed the contents, praying that somehow the pleasant fizzing feeling would dull the anger swarming in her stomach.

She was no longer sure which infuriated her more. Was it the fact that Philip had left her so fast after he had introduced her to those pleasurable feelings on that desk? Or was it Celia’s suggestion that there could be something more in this marriage?

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