Page 15 of A Duchess for the Mysterious Duke
“How do you do, my dear nephew?”
“Well,” Phillip answered drily, refusing to look up from his work.
“Are you going to continue to treat me like a rival? I have come to make my peace with your new wife. Where is she?”
The Duke looked up now, alarmed. “What could you mean?” he demanded. “What interest could you possibly have in Marina?”
“Send for her. I want to meet her,” Emmanuel insisted.
“I should think not,” Phillip answered. “We have not been married yet a week. She is busy learning her new position as Duchess. Perhaps next month we can arrange a dinner.”
Bored, the Duke tried to return to his paperwork, but Emmanuel was insistent.
“I should think that after I took you in as my own, you would not want to keep me out of your day-to-day affairs, Phillip. It does not do to bite the hand which once fed you now that you no longer need to be fed.”
The Duke and the Marquess met one another’s gaze, caught there as if in a power struggle. Phillip was sure his uncle did not mean to imply what he was, and yet the message had been more than clear.
“She is overwhelmed, Uncle. It is not that you cannot meet her at all. It is merely that this is not the right time. I said I would arrange something, and I will.” The finality in his voice echoed his conviction from that morning when he’d had to double down on telling Marina no to her request. He was starting to think that he should have followed his original instincts and stayed out of society for good.
“Very well. I will take my leave so the two of you can continue to get adjusted to married life,Phillip. But do not keep me waiting for long.”
Marina hurried downstairs when she heard Phillip’s uncle approach the door to the study. She was dressing for afternoon tea when she’d heard him arrive and had caught the tail end of their conversation on her way downstairs. None of what had happened since the night she met Phillip was making any sense. What was this, now? He had but one member of his family, and she was not permitted to meet him? Phillip knew very well that she had gone to her room to rest for an hour before her tea that afternoon. She had passed him in the hall, and they had exchanged tense but cordial pleasantries. There was no reason for him to deny the Duke’s request unless he had other reasons for keeping her from his family.
She thought of this all the while she sat in the drawing room and awaited the arrival of her best friend and sister. Phillip stopped in for a moment before they did to bid Marina farewell on his way to town. She was polite, but there was no avoiding that therewas more unspoken between the two of them which would need to be addressed.
“Will you be eating dinner in town?”
“Yes, most likely.”
“Very well. If I do not see you again, have a good night.”
“I will see you at breakfast?” he offered. She nodded her ascent though if it were up to her, she would pack her bags and run away to her home where her dear siblings and Papa were. It was customary for the ton not to call on her for her first fortnight of marriage, but it was dreadfully lonely here in these dark halls.
At last, Olivia and Kathrin arrived together for tea. Marina was so happy to see them that she could not help but throw her arms around them both in turn, pulling them into tight hugs. They sat together and talked, at first, of what the other two girls had been up to. Marina tried to immerse herself in their world which she missed deeply. She had gone from attending the opera and the theater or walking in the parks every evening to being shut up in this drab old house.
“How have you adjusted?” Kathrin asked at last. “If I can be honest, you do not quite seem yourself.”
“Yes,” Olivia agreed. “Something is clearly amiss.”
“I suppose married life has not been all that I imagined as a little girl,” Marina admitted with a sigh. “Just this morning I asked the Duke to accompany me to the ball tomorrow night, but he gave a very firmno. I do not know what I will do. I want to attend, but I cannot imagine attending alone for my first outing.”
“Of course not,” Olivia agreed. “What reason did he give?”
“He said that balls do not befit his tastes. There are too many curious people about.”
“But that is the point of balls! To dance and be seen,” Olivia protested.
“My husband does not see it so.”
“You must attend,” Kathrin said, reaching out to hold her friend’s hands. “Come early in the afternoon, and no one will see you enter alone. We will merely speak loudly near the most untoward gossips of the ton about how he has had to retire early for a headache. I will not see you spending another night here alone. It is—not to cause you any offense—quite dreary here.”
Marina gave a little laugh, comforted a bit but still distressed. “Perhaps. But I should not have to sneak around to attend social functions. In any case, the season is nearly over. Would it truly pain him so to attend the last few functions of the year?”
“How is he otherwise?” Olivia asked.
“Oh, Olivia, I am afraid I do not have a proper answer to give. We live as ghosts in the same house, passing not near butthroughone another. I am beginning to wonder why he offered to marry me at all.”
“Do not fret, Marina. Things will look up for the two of you. You must remember that he, too, is new to this world. Perhaps he means only to allow you time to adjust without him hovering over you. If I were in his position, I would think that you would want some space to learn.”
