Page 19 of In Need of a Duke
Charlotte clutched the painting and slid back against the door, falling to the floor and hugging it to her body.
“She has gone to bed, Your Grace.”
“I will not be turned out of my rooms, nor will I be denied an audience with my own wife.”
Charlotte tensed, ready to spring to her feet. She wouldn’t allow any harm to come to Susan for her own foolish decisions.
“You may go,” he snapped, dismissing her.
A moment later, Charlotte heard the muffled noise of a door shutting.
My own wife.
He didn’t deserve to consider her as such.
Another knock. Swift, urgent. This time against her dressing room door.
“Charlotte, open up. I need to speak with you.”
She couldn’t swallow past the lump in her throat to summon the words.
“Charlotte.”
She blew out a puff of air and glanced up at the ceiling painted with clouds and cherubs. Funny, considering it felt as if she was being dragged down into the underworld.
“I am not leaving until you speak with me.”
Charlotte placed the painting down beside her on the floor.
Once when she was younger, she had been at the gallery, admiring a Flemish painting, when the duke had approached. They had beenintroduced only the previous night at a ball and had shared a heated kiss hidden away on a dark balcony.
He had given her the Flemish master painting as a present later that week with a brief note, asking if she would enjoy a ride through Hyde Park. It was how the duke had entered her world—all at once, consuming what she knew of life and turning it on its head.
“I have nothing to say. Please leave.”
He cleared his throat, dropping his voice to the warm timber that made her remember all too well what they had once shared.
“Eight years ago tonight, I left you standing in my room in London.”
She felt nothing, even as her eyes welled with tears, and her heart drummed in her chest.
“Eight years, but I will claim what is mine. I am back and I am not leaving until there is an heir for the title.”
She wiped her tears and laughed. It was the most ridiculous thing, but the duke always did move through the world like a spoiled child. He always received everything he desired, even Charlotte in the end.
To think of his touch? To think of his lips pressed against hers?
It could never happen again. She would never allow it.
Charlotte stood, even as the world in front of her blurred and tunneled, closing in around her. Her hands and feet were cold. And after all this time passed between them, he had managed to freeze her heart as well.
She turned the key and clutched the knob in her hand as she slowly cracked the door open.
First, a sliver.
A small slice of the man who held her heart ransom. Who had left, twice now, before demanding this evening that she perform her wifely duties and consummate their marriage.
Then, wider.
