Page 11 of The Heartless Duke's Bride
But Margaret was obviously not open to living that way.
He led her into the sitting room, and the pair of them sat down. Margaret looked nervous but determined. A part of Edward truly wanted to give her more reason to feel nervous, to be as ominous as he could be in hope that she would give up on this and leave. Maybe if he could find a way to increase her discomfort around him, she would give him his space.
But she stayed.
“Shall we have tea brought in?” she asked. “Perhaps this conversation would be a bit more pleasant with some refreshments.”
“I don’t plan on staying that long,” he told her curtly. “Say what it is you want to say, and let’s be done with it.”
She sighed. “Why do you despise me so, Edward?”
“I don’t despise you.”
That was the truth, he thought—she was using very strong language. He didn’t despise her. He would have preferred not to have to interact with her, but that was because of the way she always tried to be a mother to him. He didn’t consider her a mother and never would, but the same could have been said of any lady.
What bothered him about Margaret was that she was always around—always in his house, always in his space, never leaving him alone. If she were someone he only had to see occasionally, he would have had no quarrel with her.
“You treat me very poorly,” she said. “I can tell that you don’t like me.”
“If you don’t like the way I treat you, you have every right to simply stay away from me,” he told her.
“I know that’s what you would prefer.”
“I’m a man who likes my solitude, Margaret. It’s not my fault I’d prefer to be alone.”
“Well, I’ll let you go back to your solitude once you’ve heard what I have to say.”
“Say it, then.”
“I can’t believe that you would make arrangements to marry without discussing it with me,” she said.
Edward sighed. “I might have known it would be that,” he replied. “I’m surprised it took you this long to bring the subject up, frankly. I’ve been expecting it from the moment I made the arrangement.”
“You mean to say that you knew it would bother me, and you did it anyway? How could you do such a thing?”
“How could I do what? Choose my own wife? I have the authority to make that decision, Margaret. I’m a grown man,andI am the Duke. Of course, I made the decision for myself.”
“This affects the whole family, Edward. Did you really think you were the only one who ought to have a say in the decision?”
“Itismy decision in the end,” he told her. “I could go through a show of pretending to seek counsel from the rest of the family, but what would be the use? We all know that I’m going to be the one to decide eventually, and that’s as it should be. I don’t need to gain approval from anyone else in order to marry, and you know that.”
“This is a serious matter,” Margaret argued. “It’s not right that you should make the decision on your own. You should have consulted me. You might be the Duke, as you say, but I am the Dowager Duchess, and that does carry some weight around here, whether you like it to or not.”
“There’s no reason I should have done that. You’re my father’s wife, Margaret. You’re not my mother.”
“You’re very cruel to me, always bringing that up. Throwing it in my face just to hurt me. I’ve done my best to be a good mother to you. I’ve always given you everything I could.”
“I’m not blaming you for our circumstances,” Edward argued. “But you must realize that you and I have never been close, Margaret. I know that you’ve gotten closer with Colin over the years—”
“And I know you haveneverapproved of my relationship with your brother,” Margaret said. “I gave up a long time ago on winning you over, Edward, but I would have thought you could at least be happy about the fact that I learned how to relate to Colin. Don’t you see that that’s a good thing for both of us? He doesn’t have a mother, apart from me. Don’t you want that for him?”
Edward wanted very much to bite back at her, to say,“you’re not his mother no matter how much you might wish you were, and you’re not mine either.”He managed to restrain himself, but only just.
“Colin can do what he likes,” he replied. “Colin can be close with you if that’s what he wants to do. I’ve done nothing to discourage him or to prevent that relationship. That doesn’t mean I’m going to do the same, and it certainly doesn’t mean you’re going to have a say in my marriage. And besides, what have you got to complain about? What’s the matter with the choice I made?”
“I don’t even know this Miss Lydia,” Margaret huffed. “How can I be sure she’s the right choice for you?”
“You don’t care about that. You’ve never cared about what’s best for me. I don’t know why you’re putting on a show about it now.”
