Page 27 of Trapped with her Cruel Duke

“What did you promise Marcus?”

Confused, she looked up into his green eyes, which held an emotion she was not used to seeing from him—uncertainty.

“What do you mean?”

“I think, as your husband and his brother, I deserve to know. You were speaking about it with my mother in the gardens. What were you referring to?”

Louise hesitated as an irrepressible need to reassure him rose in her chest. It was strange to see Christian unsure of anything. Since their first introduction, he had been the epitome of an arrogant aristocrat, ordering everyone around him to do his bidding with practiced ease.

She sighed. “It was something I wished to do.”

Christian slowly let go of her arm, his expression oddly blank. “Something you wished to do?”

“To complete, that is,” she huffed, irritated by how flustered she became around him. “I have a love of plants. I have been interested in them all my life. They are my true passion, and I have bored Marcus to tears with my talk of the encyclopedia. I intend to catalog and document all the different species in this country.”

She glanced up at him, wondering how he might view a woman wishing to do such a thing, but he simply looked baffled.

“I believe it will take me about a year to finish writing it, but if I am with child and later a mother, I will have no chance to do so.”

“To be up to your knees in the dirt?” Christian asked pointedly, his eyes traveling down to her skirts, which were still soaked from the dewy earth in the gardens.

Louise felt her cheeks redden yet again and nodded, not wishing to reveal how much she adored being outdoors and exploring nature.

The Duke took a small step forward, towering over her, his bright eyes searing and filled with promise. “You know, wife, there are things that we can do that will not result in a child. Do you not wish to find out what they might be?”

His voice was low and seductive once more as his hand came up to curl around her waist. The pulse of heat she felt between her legs was a white-hot spark that threatened to travel through the rest of her body. It electrified her senses one by one until all she could feel was him.

With a shuddering gasp, she stepped away, shaking her head as the rest of her hair slipped and cascaded down her back.

“I am sorry. This is the only part of my future that I can control, and I intend to do it until I am ready to say otherwise.”

Christian’s face shuttered at those words, and he clasped his hands behind his back, all the heat in his eyes fading as though it had never been.

“I see. You’re sure that is the only reason?”

“What other reason would there be?”

Does he believe I do not want him? The evidence to the contrary is fairly damning.

“I’m going to ask one last time. Was there more between you and my brother than you have admitted to me?” he asked, his voice cold and distant.

Louise had not stomped her foot since she was five, but she did so now, clenching her fists and glaring at him furiously.

“I have told you, Your G—” At his hard stare, she stopped and cleared her throat. “I have told you before, more than once. There was nothing between me and Marcus but friendship,” she snapped.

Immediately, his posture relaxed, and he bounced on the balls of his feet, looking pleased with himself.

“Good, because I will not allow you to lust after other men, just as I will not lust after other women.”

Louise faltered. She was still desperate to leave the room and be free of his influence for a few minutes, but there was something about his insistence on fidelity that surprised her.

She would hardly wish for Christian to become an adulterer, but the finality in his voice and his repetitive broaching of the subject were odd.

“Why are you so set on that?” she asked eventually, curiosity getting the better of her. “Many marriages are arranged for convenience’s sake. Lovers are commonplace, are they not?”

Something shifted in his expression at that question. A light left his eyes as he pressed his lips together, his jaw clenching several times before he shrugged a shoulder as though brushing the topic aside.

“I have my parents to thank for that.”

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