Page 62 of His Unruly Duchess
“Maybe I am and maybe I am not.” He grinned, his hand still holding hers.
“Goodness, would you look at the two of you!” a rather shrill voice popped the lovely bubble that Max and Caroline had been enjoying, while the ball was still relatively sedate.
The couple turned together, to find three older ladies standing there like constables waiting for a thief to come running out of a jeweler’s shop. Caroline knew one of them to be a friend of her mother’s—a woman by the name of Henrietta, the Dowager Countess of Prenton—but she did not recognize either of the other two.
“Lady Prenton, how wonderful to see you,” Caroline chirped, hoping that Henrietta’s appearance meant that her mother was not far behind. “Have you been well?”
Henrietta cast Max a thin smile. “I have been exceptionally well, dearest Caroline, which is more than can be said for your poor mother.”
“My mother is not well?” Panic struck Caroline squarely in the chest.
In the weeks since her wedding, she had written often to her mother and had received ample replies, but her mother had made no mention of being unwell. Had she been keeping something from Caroline to prevent her from worrying?
“Oh, she is well in the physical sense,” Henrietta hurried to correct, “but she was quite beside herself when all of the news was revealed. She has only just begun to recover, or so she told me when I had tea with her this past week.”
Relieved and confused in equal measure, Caroline frowned at Henrietta. “All of the news, Lady Prenton? Whatever do you mean?”
“You might be extraordinarily handsome and well respected, Your Grace,” Henrietta replied, her attention fixed on Max, “but a gentleman of your standing ought to know better than to embroil an innocent young lady in such a terrible scandal.”
One of the other women nodded vigorously. “Of course, there is no harm done now that you are married, but as friends of a friend of Her Grace’s mother, we cannot help but say something. Her Grace’s mother certainly will not.”
“Yes, quite,” Henrietta agreed. “It would be remiss of me not to chide you a little bit for your rakish behavior, even if the conclusion was of benefit to everyone.”
“I prefer not to judge,” said the third woman in a haughty tone. “But it is well known that your younger brother is a terrible rake, and onehasto wonder where he learned such behavior.”
Caroline shifted awkwardly at Max’s side, weaving her arm through his to show her support for him. But one look up at him showed that he was barely listening, his expression serene and indifferent. Taking his lead, she smiled at the three older women, deciding to ignore their remarks out of politeness.
“Is my mother here, do you know?” she asked.
But Henrietta was not content to be ignored by Max, or so it seemed. “I hope you realize the distress you caused, Your Grace. Indeed,Iam not convinced that you would have married Caroline if the truth had not been revealed. Caroline’s mother claims otherwise, but she is a sweet soul who does not know any better.”
“With respect,youknow nothing,” Max said bluntly, a polite smile fixed on his lips. “And despite your physical seniority, you ought to refer to my wife by her proper title. She is a duchess, after all.Myduchess.”
Caroline did not know whether to swoon or panic, reveling in the way he called her his while simultaneously knowing that Henrietta would not like his stern remark one bit. Indeed, the older woman was already turning an alarming shade of purple.
“It appears I was right about you, Your Grace,” Henrietta snarled. “I tried to convince Amelia that I was, but she would not listen. She insisted that you were a good man, but you are every bit as dishonorable as I suspected, and I shall tell the scandal sheets as much! They were very lenient with you before, but they will not be again. It cannot undo what you have done to Caroline,butIshall be satisfied when everyone knows the true nature of you.”
Caroline stared at Henrietta in disbelief, as a ripple of protectiveness ran through her, prompting her to tighten her hold on the man at her side. The good, honorable, generous, wonderful man who washerduke.
She had not thought about the lies that Max had deliberately spread among the scandal sheets in a while and had thought that the scorn was over after the glowing response to their first week in London, but hearing that woman spout unfair nonsense was more than Caroline was willing to take. They did not know him, and she was about to remedy that.
“My husband would not know how to be dishonorable if his life depended on it,” she retorted sharply. “Indeed, he is the best man I have ever known. Better than I deserve, most probably. And I will not hear you slander his name, when he is the reason that I am not living at my mother’s house as a hermit, hiding from society because I was jilted by his brother! My husband married me to spare me and risked his good name to spare me, and I will not listen to you judge him when he has done so much!”
Henrietta’s eyes widened to the whites, her eyebrows almost at her thinning hairline. “Jilted by his brother?”
“Oh, everything you have read was a lie, as one might expect from that gossip rag you tattlers and meddlers enjoy so much,” Caroline muttered. “Dickie did not show up to the church, Maxstepped in to marry me, and he conjured a story that would satisfy the likes of you. So, before you go spreading nasty lies abouthim, I suggest you pause to consider whether or not what youthinkyou know is the truth or if it is just a misguided opinion.”
The three matrons stared at her in abject shock, paling at the revelation. Meanwhile, Caroline stared right back with a sensation of pride swelling in her chest. For all this time, Max had been the one to defend and protect her, but now she was able to repay him in kind. Nothing could have felt better.
No one will treat you badly again, husband of mine.
She glanced up at him with a smile on her face… but it faded slowly as she realized that he did not look happy at all. He was looking back at her as if she had taken leave of her senses, his blue eyes flashing with anger, his kissable lips pressed into a tensed line of grim disapproval.
“Excuse us,” Max said curtly.
He took Caroline’s hand, not gently at all, and pulled her away from the horrified matrons. She did not need anyone to tell her that she had just made a terrible mistake.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
