Page 30 of The Icy Duke Claims a Bride

“Your mother was originally engaged to your father’s eldest brother, Edward, of course. When he died of diphtheria, the negotiations and marriage contract had already been completed. It was a great deal of work and represented a significant benefit to both families. Your grandfather therefore decided that the best thing was simply for Albion to step into his brother’s shoes. Elizabeth’s father agreed.”

Now Catherine didn’t have even enough breath for a single word. She’d known that her uncle had died before her birth, making her father heir to the viscounty. But no one had ever mentioned Edward Wright having been engaged to her mother.

“I told old Lord Sedgehall at the time that your parents’ match was a terrible idea, as did my husband. Elizabeth and Albion were both grieving. They were meant to be brother and sister, not spouses, and Albion was already in love with someone else…” Rebecca shook her head and sighed disapprovingly. “But your grandfather was pigheaded and half-mad with grief himself. Those youngsters were dragged to the altar despite themselves and spent the rest of their lives regretting it.”

While she found it hard at first to think of either of her parents as “youngsters” or capable of being coerced into marriage by their families, Catherine could not help but feel sympathy for them both.

“Why are you telling me this, Madam?” she asked crossly, disliking being made to feel sorry for her father.

“I see no point in you and Hugh being unhappy only because Albion and Elizabeth were so unhappy before you. Do you?”

Rebecca’s voice was calm and controlled. She might have been recounting the plot of a play or an opera she had seen rather than events that had radically shaped their lives and families.

“They should never have married,” Catherine mumbled.

“No, they should not have,” the Dowager Duchess agreed crisply. “As I said, it was an error on everyone’s part, although at least they gained two healthy daughters from the union.”

“Why should Hugh and I be any different from my parents? Is Hugh not also grieving?”

Rebecca smiled as though enjoying this challenge rather than being offended by it. “Neither of you is in love with anyone else, to begin with,” she pointed out, holding up one finger. “You also have the advantage of your age. Albion and Elizabeth were entirely untempered by life experience. Then, your characters are highly complementary, and theirs were not. As for grief,twenty years is time enough, and I say that as a bereaved mother and a grandmother…”

At that moment, the drawing room door opened, and Hugh entered, bowing formally to his grandmother and nodding to Catherine. His face was solemn and partly covered as usual by a black silk mask.

Looking at him now, Catherine remembered the sight of her husband’s scarred but still-handsome face without that mask and the full, unobscured view of his deep blue eyes as he pulled back from one kiss, only to lean in for another.

“Aha, you’ve finished with that ridiculous farce in the garden and made time for your grandmother, have you?” Rebecca teased. “I think your wife must talk to you seriously about your priorities.” Her penetrating blue eyes flicked to Catherine’s face for a moment.

Catherine hoped that the Dowager Duchess could not detect the flush in her cheeks.

“I needed to speak with Bellchurch on an important matter, Grandmother,” Hugh said.

“Yes, it seems lucky that it was the cat being buried under the rosebush and not you.” The Dowager Duchess snorted, sipping her tea with a dispassionate expression.

“You told her?” Hugh frowned at his wife, displeased by this development.

“I couldn’t hide something like this from your grandmother,” Catherine argued.

“Nor should you,” Rebecca added, before Hugh could say anything further. “You have an intelligent wife, and the two of you should work together. Now, tell me what Bellchurch has to say about this poisoning business.”

“None of his stocks have been touched. He’s sure of it. Nor has Mrs. Kaye found any cyanide in the house. The cats keep the pests down, and it has never been needed.”

“Then someone brought the poison into your house, I suspect,” Rebecca said promptly, her mind working fast. “Do you have any idea who that could have been? New hires? Tradesmen? Recent visitors?”

“Our only visitors were Lord Edwin and Lady Georgina, yesterday afternoon,” Catherine replied, trying to keep her voice neutral and avoid making an inflammatory accusation.

The Dowager Duchess only nodded thoughtfully, but Hugh frowned, his expression becoming strange as he stared at Catherine.

“They weren’t the only people who came to Redbridge Hall in the past week, though,” he said pointedly. “We have had at least one new arrival, haven’t we?”

Catherine rose to her feet abruptly as she realized what he was suggesting, her hands balled into fists and her cheeks flaming red with anger rather than desire.

“You think that—How dare you! You—you… You awful man!”

She turned on her heel and marched out of the room, unsure what to make of the fact that she could hear Rebecca’s laughter behind her.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Why did she run off like that?” Hugh demanded with ill humor as the sound of his wife’s footsteps faded away. “I was making an entirely reasonable point, and she should have excused herself before she left.”

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