Page 43 of Married to a Wicked Duke
Veronica swallowed heavily. “Yes,” she admitted. “Your grandmother invited me in. She wished to show me the apron.”
Frederick curled his hands into fists at his side. “How dare you?” he hissed. “How dare you trespass like that?”
“Trespass?” Veronica repeated incredulously. She felt her own anger beginning to flare up. “This is my home.”
Frederick jabbed a long finger under her nose. “No one goes in my mother’s studio. And no one uses her things. Do you understand? Take the apron off this instant.”
Veronica glared at him. She slipped the apron off over her head and folded it neatly, but she kept a firm hold on it.
“Give it to me,” Frederick hissed.
She shook her head. Her heart was thundering and she felt impossibly hot, but she refused to back down. She was not about to cower to her own husband, especially when he was being so unreasonable. So cold and cruel. “Your grandmother gave it to me as a gift. It would be ungrateful of me to return it.”
Frederick’s eyes flashed, as though taken aback by her boldness. “It was not my grandmother’s place to give it away,” he snapped. “And it certainly was not yours to accept it. My mother’s things are not to be touched. Especially not by outsiders.”
Veronica’s eyes widened. “Outsiders?” she repeated. She glared at him, rage welling up inside her. “How dare you call me such a thing! I am yourwife.”
Frederick snorted. “Not by choice.”
Veronica clenched her hands into fists and stormed from the room, unable to bear the sight of her husband for another second. She charged down the passage into her bedchamber, throwing the door closed behind her. She tucked the apron beneath the window seat and closed her eyes, trying to steady her breathing. She was not sure she had ever felt anger quite as overwhelming as this. Nor could she remember ever having been on the receiving end of anything quite so hurtful. All the taunts she had received throughout her life about being the Earl of Volk’s daughter paled in comparison to the cutting words that had just spilled from her husband’s lips.
How could I have believed he was a kind and decent man? I knew from the start that this is how cruel he can be. I learned that the first moment I met him.
The door to her bedchamber flew open and Frederick marched in. Veronica glared at him.
“Get out,” she demanded, surprising herself with her sharpness. “This is my room and I do not want you in it.”
Frederick stayed planted in the doorway. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It was out of line for me to say such things. I—”
“I told you to get out!” Veronica hissed. “I am far too angry at you right now to even consider accepting an apology.” She began to pace furiously across the room, clenching her hands into fists. “An outsider?” she repeated. “Is that truly what you think of me?”
“Veronica, I—”
“And I may not be your wife by choice, but I can assure you I did not want this marriage either. Why would I ever wish to be married to such a cold and heartless man?” She felt her words tumbling out unbidden. She felt utterly powerless to stop them. It was as though all the years of obedience and acquiescing had finally caused something to break inside her. All at once, she had had enough of obedience. Enough of saying only what she thought people wished to hear. She may be just the daughter of a penniless drunk; her husband might be the illustrious Duke of Brownwood, but he still had no right to speak to her in such a way.
“You ought to have married Lady Juliet,” she hissed. “The two of you would have made each other happy—or made each other miserable, more like. Which is what you deserve. And by the way, you really need to learn to knock, and to not just come barging into someone’s room without being invited. Just because you are a Duke does not mean you can just—”
Frederick grabbed her arm and pulled her towards him, kissing her hard on the lips. Wild rage shot through her, but instead of pulling away, she found herself digging her hands into his hair and returning the kiss with vigor.
Breathless, Frederick broke away. “I did not realize you were capable of such anger.” Something glimmered in his gray eyes.
“Of course I am angry! How dare you speak to me like that! Did you really think I would just—”
His mouth found hers again, his hand sliding down her body to squeeze her upper thigh. Veronica heard herself moan against his lips at the jolt of pleasurable pain. She felt her body come alive at his touch.
Oh, this cursed man!How could he make her feel so insanely infuriated and so impossibly good at the same time?
Without breaking the kiss, he eased her back towards the bed. She felt herself tumble onto the mattress and land softly on her back. In one swift movement, Frederick shoved her skirts to her waist. Veronica gasped at the feel of the cool air touching her most intimate of places. She felt impossibly vulnerable at being seen like this, with her skirts at her hips and daylight pouring through the window, her husband leaning close with his eyes raking over her. But she felt her body arching upwards towards him as though it had a mind of its own.
As though it had no single idea of just how angry she was at her husband right now.
She tried to find the words to protest. Words to tell him to leave—and to never come into her bedchamber again. But she seemed physically incapable of uttering them. All she could make sense of was the fire beginning to burn between her legs and her desperate need for Frederick to touch her there again.
“Tell me to stop and I shall,” he murmured. But before she could even think about forming an objection, his lips were working their way up the inside of her thigh, and Veronica could barely remember what she had even been angry about.
His tongue slid up over her hot skin, before flicking against the place she craved him the most. “Veronica,” he said, “do you want me to stop?” She could hear the mischievous smile in his voice. “Are you too angry with me to continue?”
Yes,she tried to say.Yes, I am far too angry and I wish you to stop this instant.
