Page 18 of The Heartless Duke's Bride
But Lydia didn’t want to discuss her plan with her friend for fear of being told that she was making a mistake. She was resolved. Before she could change her mind, she squared her shoulders and marched across the room.
The Duke and his companion looked up at her approach.
“Ah,” the unfamiliar gentleman observed, “the Duchess is here.”
“Good evening,” Lydia told him. “Thank you for joining us tonight.” She turned to the Duke. “I’d like to dance.”
The Duke raised his eyebrows. “You can see that I’m in the middle of a conversation.”
“Well, I don’t mind a bit,” the gentleman said. “I’ll find you later, Your Grace. Go and dance with your wife. You only get one wedding ball, after all.”
He walked away.
The Duke stared at Lydia, and for a moment, she thought he was about to refuse her.
But then, he held out his arm. “I don’t think much of your tactics,” he complained, “but I suppose he’s right. If you want to dance, we had better go and do it.”
CHAPTERNINE
“You don’t think much of mytactics?” Lydia asked as he led her onto the dance floor. “Would you like to elaborate on that, Your Grace?”
“You can call me by my name,” Edward told her. “You are my wife now, after all, Lydia.”
It was the first time he had called her properly by her name, and he found himself wondering how she would react—whether she might blush or go quiet. But she seemed to take it in stride.
“All right,” she said. “Edward, then. What did you mean by my tactics?”
“Walking right up to me and demanding that I dance with you when you could see that I was in conversation with another guest.”
The truth was that he hadn’t wanted to dance with her at all. The fact that he’d been in conversation had nothing to do with it. He had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t dance with her tonight—that he wouldn’t dance with anyone ever again, in fact. But that oath would be too difficult to explain right now. He had been prepared for the fact that this might happen. He would allow it to happen.
“There are several things I’d take issue with in that,” Lydia said.
“Go on.” He was curious in spite of himself.
“First of all, you saidanotherguest. I assume you meant to imply that you think of me as a guest, and I’m not one. It’s as you just said yourself. I’m your wife. You are my husband. It’s ridiculous to imply that I share the same status as any guest inourhome.”
“You’re very bold.”
“But I assume Margaret will have told you that about me by now.”
He couldn’t help smiling. “She might have mentioned it.”
“I don’t know if I’m bold or not. What I do know is that I would rather speak the truth than dance around it. This homedoesbelong to the both of us, does it not?”
“It does.”
“Then I’ll refer to it as ours, unless you have some quarrel with that.”
“No quarrel. But you said you took issue with more than one thing I’d said.”
“That’s right,” she agreed. “You also complained about the fact that I demanded that you dance with me. That’s not what happened. I made no demands of you at all. I told you that I wanted to dance, which was true. How could you be expected to know that if you weren’t told?”
“Perhaps in the future you ought to wait for me to approach you.”
“Why?” she asked bluntly. “Why should I wait for you to come to me? You didn’t seem as if you planned on doing it. If I hadn’t known better, I would have said you had forgotten I was there at all. If I hadn’t come over to you, I doubt whether you and I would have spoken at all tonight.”
Edward had to admit that she had a point. He hadn’t done a good job of acknowledging her presence, and it made sense that she would be frustrated by that. After all, this was her wedding day as much as it was his.
