Page 73 of Wedded to the Ruthless Duke

“I never,” Grace whispered. “I fall readily off my own two feet but not off a horse. Philip?” She looked up. He had barely noticed she was speaking at all, for he was still busy pacing.

“Why do they continue to do it? Why do they always write aboutyou?”

“I don’t know!” she countered fast, her voice also full of anger now. She discarded the scandal sheet quickly, tossing it back down to the table. “Philip, you know I haven’t been out of this house since I arrived. I have spent nearly every minute inyourcompany. As for my skirts being blown up, quite frankly —”

“I know, I know.” Philip held his hands up in the air, speaking just as loudly as he attempted to stem the flow of her argument. “I know you haven’t been out. I know, too, this is all a lie.”

She sighed with relief though it was momentary, for he was still pacing.

“The question is, why the hell are they so fixated on writing about you? Someone out there is determined to make a spectacle of you. To make sure your reputation is trodden into the ground.”

“And by extension, you meanyourreputation, don’t you?” she hissed.

He halted walking and turned to face her, thrusting his hands into his pockets.

“You do,” she murmured, not needing him to confirm it. “Does your reputation matter to you more than anything?”

“Don’t do that.” He shook his head and turned away again.

This argument was fierce, and it cut deeply for Grace. It had to be one of the worst they’d yet had. This wasn’t bickering but something infinitely more full of feeling.

“You remember our deal?” he asked, returning to his pacing. “Our arrangement was that you wouldn’t appear in the scandal sheets anymore.”

“Oh yes, I remember it vividly — because you somehow seem to think that it is within my control not to appear in these things.” She waved a hand toward the sheet. “May I remind you that you have just agreed with me that it is all a lie? How am I possibly supposed to avoid that?”

“I know, I know!” he said again, whipping back around fast. When he looked at her this time, something seemed to crack in his expression. He sighed, deeply. “I’m sorry.”

“What?” She stumbled as she moved around a chair, startled. “What did you say?”

“Dear God, are such words so foreign on my lips that they are unbelievable?” He raked a hand through his hair again and walked toward her. “I’m sorry,” he murmured the words once more. “I know you haven’t done anything. It’s just…”

He paused when he reached her, raising a hand and tangling his fingers into one of the loose locks of her hair that hung down about her cheek. He wrapped it around his fingers for a second then pushed it back behind her ear.

In that sudden silence, she wanted to tremble with excitement. She was remembering what it was like to feel his hands upon her, to be the subject of his desires. If he kept playing with her hair in such a way, then she may be tempted to beg him to relive those moments.

“I can’t help it,” he muttered. “Protecting a reputation has been something that’s been drilled into me since I’m young. I don’t like it when someone out there is intentionally trying to destroy us both.”

The guilt raged inside of her. She hung her head, making his fingers drop from her hair. She focused on the floor, the excitement that had swelled in her stomach moments before now vanishing as the guilt overtook her.

She had never minded too much appearing in the scandal sheets. It was hardly a pleasant thing, no, but she could live with it. She didn’t mind being the antithesis of what others expected in a fine lady. Had she not found friends who loved her for who she was? Why would she need the approval of theton, most of whom she would never speak to in her life?

“I’m sorry they write about me so much.”

“Don’t you start apologizing,” he whispered with a slow chuckle though there was little humor in it. “I shouldn’t be angry when it is out of your control.” He turned away.

The sudden distance as he walked a little away from her hurt her all the more. She watched him as he rubbed his hands across his face, the stress palpable, as if it hung in the air around them like a thick fog.

She was shocked at the power of the feelings swelling within her. It was a sadness that she had let him down. She didn’t want to hurt him.

“You haven’t eaten,” she whispered, pointing at the table, trying her best to move onto a new conversation.

“I don’t feel like eating this morning.” Then he marched from the room.

The apology he’d given, the soft voice and the touch to her hair, seemed like a great distance away as he vanished from the room.

Grace’s breath hitched in her throat as she watched the door close behind him.

“I’m always going to be a disappointment to him,” she whispered to herself in realization.

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