Page 84 of A Duchess Disciplined

William slumped into his chair. It seemed to him as though Geoffrey hesitated for just a moment at the door. If the butler was waiting for William to change his mind, Geoffrey would stand there forever. After a heartbeat, Geoffrey left and closed the door behind him.

The urge to scream rose inside William. What a mess this was! Marrying Catherine had been the worst decision of his life. He drank another large swallow of the brandy and eyed the mostly empty decanter. William sighed. He felt suddenly old, and exhaustion pulled at his body, threatening to drag him down into a sea of fatigue.

“I wonder how many men need to falloutof love their wives,” William murmured.

If he had not been so disturbed by the day’s events, he might have laughed at the situation in which he had found himself. There was a terrible irony in falling in love with a woman whom he had resolved never to care about. William finished the rest of the brandy and closed his eyes, silently praying for sleep to come.

Instead, he saw Catherine on the ground, tears in her eyes and her hair disheveled and flecked with grass and broken leaves.

The physician said that she is fine. He would know far more than I would.

Was it possible that the man might have made an error? Maybe William ought to ask another physician for his professional opinion. That would irritate Catherine, but given her behavior, maybe an endless litany of visits from physicians would teach her a lesson that his corrections had not.

He sat there for a long time, his mind awhirl with a scattering of plans. Every time he thought of drawing away from Catherine, his chest ached in dread of hurting her and himself. She had only been herself, and he had allowed that! It was his fault.

But no?—

For his sake, as well as hers, it was best that he retreated from her and learned not to love her. Only then could he be the stern and distant husband, the duke who was supposed to be obeyed. Only then would he have the resolve to treat Catherine as the wife of convenience that she was meant to be.

CHAPTER28

Catherine emerged from her injury uninjured. She had spent just two days in bed, recovering from her injury. But as Catherine entered the ballroom, her hand at the crook of William’s arm, she wondered if her fall had somehow woundedhim.Her husband seemed to have grown a heart of ice since that fateful day. He had not come to see her as she recovered, and Catherine had assumed that was only a temporary detachment.

She had been incorrect in that assumption. When she sought him out, William was conspicuously always busy or absent. He did not join her at meals. Once she had met him at the door, preparing to leave for the ball, she had heard the audible catch of his breath and had thought that hemighthave thawed just a little.

He had not. Even at the ball, he stood stiffly beside her. She might as well have been accompanied by a marble statue. Catherine cleared her throat. “Are you going to give me a lecture?” she asked, trying for a light tone.

“No,” he replied. “I assume that you know how to behave.”

“I see.”

William began walking to the dance floor, where a new song was beginning. Lords and ladies, laughing and smiling, hurried to find partners and begin a waltz.

“We will dance,” William said.

“Demanding,” she murmured.

He cast her a vicious look. “I do not imagine that you have any reason to complain about dancing at a ball,” William said. “Do not be a child, my lady.”

“Iam not the one who is behaving like a child,” she said tersely. “What about your own behavior? You have avoided me as if I had the plague ever since I fell. I was unhurt. Are you upset by my continued survival?”

He clenched his jaw and all but pulled her into the circle of dancers. William put his hand on her waist and took her hand with the other. He kept her close, but Catherine suspected that was because of the dance rather than any real desire to be beside her. Her chest ached, and her body seemed to come alive with the memory of better times, when he had touched her like he wanted to be close to her.

The first notes of the song began, and although William’s eyes remained fixed on hers, there was nothing friendly in his expression. Music swirled around them, its lively notes at odds with the frigidity that crept between the two of them.

“Why are you upset with me?” Catherine asked, as they went through the first steps of the dance. “I have done nothing wrong.”

William grimaced. “We do not need to speak about this.”

“I think we do,” she argued. “I am being your perfect duchess tonight, as per our agreement. I think I am owed an explanation as to why my husband is treating me like a stranger.”

“Keep your voice lowered!” he hissed.

They kept dancing, and out of the corner of her eye, Catherine spied ladies with bright smiles and glowing cheeks. Some spoke softly to their partners as they performed the waltz. Their colorful skirts whirled about them. It was like a dagger to her heart. Had she and William not been close to happy? Why had falling from a tree, just a little accident, ruined everything?

“You knew what I was when you agreed to marry me,” she said, heat creeping to her face. “You persuaded me to offer myself to you in my sister’s stead, so it is unfair of you to now find fault in me for being precisely who I always was.”

“I do not find fault in you,” William said. “Rather, it is obvious that the fault lies with me.”

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