Page 44 of A Bride for the Wicked Duke

“Maybe I was wrong.”

“Oh, this is good.” Eveline was sitting up, her eyes wide with excitement as she looked between the two, eager to see them argue.

“Wrong?” Rosalind laughed. “You know that is not the case. Just as you know my brother needs to learn to keep his nose out of my affairs.”

“Now, that is not fair.”

“It is!’ Rosalind cried, getting flustered. “I am only twenty-one years of age, but he treats me as if I am an old maid, desperate to marry. What does it matter if it takes me a few more Seasons. He is unreasonable.”

“He does it out of love.”

“He does it for himself,” Rosalind snapped back. “Anyone can see it.”

“Is he looking to marry also?” Caroline cut in between the two best friends, eager to put a stop to their bickering and change the topic. “I have not heard anything.”

Rosalind was glaring at Aurelia in warning, and Aurelia glared back. She was angrier at herself than she was at Rosalind, because it was not as if Rosalind had said anything untrue. What was more, Aurelia should not have gotten involved, only making things worse. Typical of her, really.

“He should be,” Rosalind answered Caroline eventually, giving Aurelia a final look of warning to make sure she would not say anything further. “But that is half the problem. We have spoken of it before, and he himself has admitted to me that he intends to find a bride as soon as he is able...”

Aurelia found herself perking up at the comment. She tried not to look too interested, but once again that same thought she’d been having recently reared its head. That of the duke and marriage, the very unlikely idea that perhaps the suitor she was after wasn’t so hard to find after all.

“... but this last Season he has not given any indication that he intends to marry,” Aurelia continued, curling her nose. “And I know why – he thinks I do not, but I am more than aware.”

“What do you mean?” Aurelia asked casually.

“I am what matters most,” she explained to the group. “And until I have found myself a husband, he seems to not care one bit about his own future. Which might sound like a nice thought, but it explains too why he is so insistent that I marry.” She sighed. “The whole thing is frustrating to say the least.”

Eveline snorted. “Can you imagine the bride he would take also? She would have to be the most proper of sorts. Prim and elegant and walking about as if she had a stick permanently wedged up her --”

“Eveline!” Caroline cried.

“She is right,” Rosalind giggled. “My brother would not settle for anything but the best, which might explain why he has given up. Such a lady as that does not exist. The search for perfection in an imperfect world.”

“Elegantly put,” Caroline laughed.

Aurelia did her best to appear mildly interested by the comment, but inside she felt her mood souring at the thought of this imaginary lady of perfect propriety.So not what the duke would want.

What Rosalind said just now made perfect sense, and if Aurelia was being serious with herself then she would have admitted it long ago. In the eyes of the ton, the duke was the perfect gentleman, and when he found himself a bride, she would need to be the perfect lady. For appearances sake if nothing else.But he isn’t the perfect gentleman. That’s not the real him at all.

Only Aurelia knew the real duke. And only she seemed to understand that the type of woman who most assumed he was suited for would not work with him one little bit. He wasn’t the upstanding bastion of propriety as everyone said he was. He had a dark side. A wicked side. A side that was funny and scathing, that was playful and mocking. A side that was, to be perfectly honest, exactly what Aurelia had always wanted in a man.

She felt her mood crashing and she did not care how it looked, such that when the topic found its way to her own sordid life, she hardly even noticed.

“You should have seen how furious mother was,” Eveline laughed. “When she learned that Lord Littlefield was broke. The way she was screaming had the entire household staff in hiding.”

“Oh dear,” Caroline gasped.

“I think it’s for the best,” Rosalind said, trying to cheer up the mood. “There was always something not quite right about him. And I have no doubt that when Aurelia finds her future husband, he will be perfect. Isn’t that right, Aurelia?”

“Wh -- what?” Aurelia looked up to find the table watching her. Her mood was still crashing. She wished to be anywhere but at that table. Yet she forced a smile and laughed it off. “Yes, he was... too bald for my liking.”

Eveline snorted. “And short.”

From there, the conversation devolved into a discussion of men, particularly what the girls wanted from a husband. Superficially, of course, as without the weight of expectation on their shoulders, that was all which really mattered.

As Rosalind and Eveline compiled their lists enthusiastically, Aurelia sat in silence, unable to find the enthusiasm to join in. All she could think about was the duke, still soured about how the girls had spoken of him. He wasn’t what they said or what they thought. They didn’t know him at all! Even Rosalind, his own sister, was blind to the man he truly was.

As to why she could not get past this, for it shouldn’t have bothered her nearly as much as it was doing… she preferred not to consider.

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