Page 97 of Wedded to the Scottish Duke

CHAPTER 27

“Celia? You haven’t touched your food.” Elizabeth sat down beside her at the dining table.

Frances had long since left the table, taking refuge in the drawing room with a pack of cards and letters from a friend. Celia couldn’t blame her for escaping. If she were in her shoes, Celia wouldn’t have wanted to be around anyone so miserable as she was right now.

“I’m not hungry, I’m afraid.” Celia put down her knife and fork, quite abandoning her attempt to look like she was eating at all.

“You need your strength,” Elizabeth said softly.

She pulled Celia’s plate away and swapped it with a bowl of treacle sponge pudding that looked rather delicious. Celia lifted her spoon and took a small bite.

“There, at least that’s something.”

“You’re very kind,” Celia whispered.

She kept looking at Elizabeth, strangely mesmerized by the warmth and kindness in her expression. She was rather different from Marianne in countenance. Not once had Elizabeth reprimanded or reproached her for the manner in which she had ended up married to Keith.

“Forgive me…” Celia began slowly. “I wanted to ask you… Keith and I had to marry fast, and?—”

“Ah, you wish to know how I feel about it.” Elizabeth smiled. “Well, how does your mother feel?”

“Do not look behind that particular screen.” Celia shook her head as she took another tiny bite of pudding. “My mother is very disappointed in me. She always has been. I’ve been a bit too wild for her liking. I’m not exactly the proper lady she wanted me to be.”

“Who wants to be proper?” Elizabeth asked with a wry smile. Celia froze with her spoon halfway to her lips. “Being like every other lady in the ton surely means you’re no longer an individual but a sheep. One of the flock, not a woman with wits of her own.”

Celia blinked. It was not quite the reaction she had been expecting.

“And as for how quickly you and my son married, it may surprise you to know that I was rather relieved.”

“You were?” Celia put down her spoon.

“Before you got married, Keith talked so much about marriage. He was doing it because I made it clear to him that he would need an heir someday, I know that.” Elizabeth grimaced.

Celia wanted to run out of the room. The thought that all she and Keith had shared over the last day was because he wanted an heir suddenly made her feel like nothing but livestock. She was here to give him a son, that was it.

“The fact that he married you showed he was marrying for another reason, though.” Elizabeth smiled. “I do not know what happened between you two before you got married, Celia, but clearly it wasn’t nothing. Neither of you have attempted to deny it.”

Rather embarrassed to be having this discussion with her mother-in-law, Celia was tempted to hide her face in her napkin but decided against it.

“Then, he married you to protect your reputation. The fact that you were intimate shows there was passion there, and the fact that he married you shows that he cared. Clearly…” Elizabeth’s smile grew wider. “You mean a great deal to him.”

Celia snorted. The sound was rather loud and made Elizabeth giggle.

“Forgive me, but I fear you are quite wrong. If he cared about me, why would he run away the morning after we got married? He spent less than a whole day in my company as his wife.” Celia reached for the wine glass that had been keeping her company all evening and downed it rather hurriedly.

“Ah, I fear he has run away because he cares about you.” Elizabeth stared down into her own wine glass, adjusting some of the candles on the table between them so that the golden light was brighter. “Has he ever talked to you about his father? My late husband?”

“A little.” Celia gulped. His mother had to know about his scars. To talk about them with her, though, seemed like a great invasion of Keith’s privacy. “The scars…” She left it at that.

Slowly, Elizabeth nodded. “My husband was not a kind man. That is the simple truth of it.”

Her shoulders slumped a little as she took a sip of wine. The pain was obvious, even now with the man long gone.

Celia quaked, fearing that there were also scars on Elizabeth’s body.

“What sort of man was he, then?” she whispered, not wishing to push too far yet desperate to know more.

“He set his sights on me the moment he saw me.” Elizabeth grimaced again. “You could say I was flattered. I didn’t wantthe marriage, but when it was arranged by my father and him, I accepted it. I went into the marriage with hope.

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