Page 13 of Tamed By her Duke

Grace gritted her teeth, thinking back to the naive version of herself that had, mere hours before, assured her friends that her marriage would not be so bad. She’d just be a few streets away, she’d told them! The duke couldn’t be so bad, she’d claimed!

Now she was in a carriage, headed to Scotland, missing her own wedding breakfast, while her husband lounged like he was a horse in need of gelding.

She smiled her very sweetest smile. She’d spent her life under the vicious scrutiny of theton. Given her father’s work, she’d not even been exempt as a child. Then she’d survived three years of beingabducted, for goodness’ sake.

If her husband thought some rudeness and innuendo was enough to break her, he was about to learn otherwise very, very swiftly.

“Oh, are we planning to prioritize comfort on this journey? I do wish you had said so earlier, Your Grace. I have changed out of mywedding gown—” She paused meaningfully. “—and into clothes more suitable for traveling.”

His languid posture didn’t shift at her words, but his gaze did dart down to her ornate frock, which, even to a gentleman’s untrained eye, looked uncomfortable for long carriage journeys. Grace wasn’t miserable yet, but she had a strong sense that she would be for many hours before they reached their destination. Rushing her out of the church like he did suggested that her husband did not intend for a languid day of easy travel.

“Of course,” she added, letting her smile grow sharp and tapping a gloved finger against your chin, “if you are merely trying to bully me, I might that using your size and your sex to do so are particularly uninspired.” She let her gaze grow fully flat. “You are a man. Bravo. No need to throw it around like a child having a temper tantrum.”

He grew increasingly taut, the lines of his body a marked contrast with his position. Good. If she was to be uncomfortable, he could be, too.

“Ye’ve a mouth on ye, eh there, lass?” he asked, that rough Scottish burr faintly menacing.

Grace, however, remained distinctly un-menaced. She’d decide to grow worried when he bound her hand and foot and threw her on the bottom of a hack. Until then, she would consider thismere masculine posturing. Boring and uninventive, to be sure, but notdangerous.

So, she just shrugged, the gesture dismissive.

It was delightful, honestly, how much this clearly irritated him.

“Ye know,” he said, sitting upright and then leaning forward until he was crowding into her space. She didn’t give him the pleasure of seeing her cringe away. “Yer father told me ye were ruined. When I saw the size of yer dowry, I wondered how that could be true. For that blunt, a man would take a proper soiled dove, eh?”

Her face was impassive, though she found that the words stung. She thought she would have been immune to insults against her virtue by now, but hearing such comments from her husband’s lips was uniquely unpleasant.

"But maybe now I see why. Maybe the rest of Society has abandoned ye and left ye with me as your only option—” He paused, as if to give her a chance to really embrace his benevolence. “—because ye’re too impulsive and careless to know yer place.”

She held his gaze for a long moment—just enough to show that she wasn’t intimidated—then looked placidly out the window.

“Youknow,” she said, throwing his earlier words back at him, “that’s quite the assumption to make, considering we’dexchanged—what, five words before our vows? If you’d bothered to come meet me before skulking behind closed doors with my father like some sort of criminal, perhaps you’d have a better sense of my true character.”

If he truly knew her, he’d know that she was the opposite of impulsive or careless—not that her impertinence now was making that case in any strong way. But for all that she was being contrary, she did not feel that this necessarily indicated impulsiveness. No, she was in control. She had had the value of that control drummed into her so vehemently that she wasn’t about to let it go easily.

She simply didn’t think this duke, for all his size and bluster, was truly any danger. Perhaps other new brides might put the concept ofdangerat a lower register. After all, she likelywasin danger of making him dislike her. She was certainly in danger of making this long carriage ride extremely awkward.

But he hadn’t grabbed her, not even when she’d hesitated to follow him out of the church. He hadn’t muttered threats, not even now that they were alone, and she was legally his to treat as he wished. He was just…annoying. And rude.

He made a dismissive noise at the back of his throat. “And why would I do that, eh? What do I care what kind of character ye’ve got? I needed a wife for heirs, not for company.”

She made her own dismissive noise. “So, what? You’re seeking a broodmare?”

His eyes flashed. They were blue, like hers, though darker, as if not even the color of his eyes dared contrast his overbearing mood. Those eyes, combined with his dark brown hair, practically black in the dim carriage, made him look like the rakish pirate from a melodrama, the one who would try to steal the fair maiden’s heart despite his dastardly ways.

Drat, Grace would really miss borrowing novels from Diana, now that she was set to live in Scotland. They probably had bookstores in Scotland, though Grace doubted they’d be any good.

A slow, creeping smile split her husband’s face into a crooked grin. “No,” he said. “I’m not seekin’ a broodmare.” He paused, the grin growing ever wider. “I’ve already got one.”

She gasped—and darn it all, maybe shewasimpulsive, because her hand swung up as if of its own accord, swinging forward to slap him before she’d made the decision to do so.

Not that it mattered. She never made contact. Moving as fast as a striking snake, her husband reached up to grasp her wrist, halting her strike. He used the momentum to pull her to her feet and then across to his side of the carriage. When he spoke, his voice was very low, though his face was close enough to hers that it did not impede her hearing him in the slightest.

“Listen to me,” he said, voice like gravel. “Ye wish to cut me with your sharp tongue? Fine. Be prepared to get as good as ye give, but fine. Ye wish to sulk and pout and moan? Also fine. Just don’t expect me to give a damn about whatever worthlessnonsense ye’re on about.” He was still holding her hand. His grip didn’t hurt, but it wasn’t moveable, either. She was as equally shackled as if she’d been clapped in irons.

“But,” he said, deadly serious, “ye’ll not raise a hand to me. An honorable man doesnae strike a woman, and no matter what ye think of me, Grace, that’s one promise I intend to hold sacred. But yewillshow me the same respect—in this, if in nothing else. Do ye understand me?”

She could feel the warmth of him, not just where his hand was clasped around her wrist, but from all of him, as if he were a brazier set to warm the room on a cool autumn morn. It was distracting.

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