Page 23 of In Need of a Duke
“I have returned home, and I wish for us to be civil.” He narrowed his eyes, studying her. “Are you sure you are not cold? You can have my jacket.”
Charlotte would rather lick the black-and-white tiled foyer clean than accept his help. “Please continue, Your Grace.”
“This is no love match, and there are plenty of marriages that operate in much the same way.”
She folded her arms in front of her, ignoring the sudden twisting pain in her chest.
“Operate how exactly? Are you implying husbands typically abandon their brides on their wedding night?”
He leaned closer, the first hint his temper was flaring to the surface. Good, she would take his anger instead of his cold indifference.
“I didn’t abandon you.”
“No? What do you call running out while I was standing there naked in your room on our wedding night? You never returned?—”
“I came back.”
“Once. I’ve seen you once in eight years, and you stayed for an hour to talk to the steward before running off.”
“I am the Duke of Dandridge. I do not run.”
“You can call it whatever you wish, Your Grace. But you left, and I have remained.”
“I have a duty to supply an heir. As my wife?—”
“You should have thought of that before you left. Yes, I am a gently bred woman, but I understand the basics of what happens between a man and a woman, as you well know. An heir doesn’t commonly happen by immaculate conception for the majority of us.”
“I am here now, and I wish to remedy that.”
Charlotte closed her eyes as a shiver passed over her. “I don’t want to be your wife, Ian. Find another way.”
“I won’t grant you a divorce. Not today, not in ten years. Charlotte, you are my wife, and your duty is to provide me with an heir.”
Her duty?
“And what of yours?”
“I have done my duty. I married you. Now I must provide an heir, and then I will leave you.”
Provide an heir. As if that was all it ever had been between them—a business agreement.
She had traded her family for a life with the man she loved, but it hadn’t been so simple. She wished for a child more than anything but… to share a marriage bed with such a cold, unfeeling monster of a man?
Charlotte shook her head. “You can’t suddenly return and make such demands. Don’t you wish to know me? Once, you told me I was…”
“I was a foolish man blinded by your beauty and affection.”
Her heart shattered once more. To dismiss her in that way, to talk of what they shared as if he had grown tired of a new phaeton after winning its first race.
“And you do so love to collect beautiful things, don’t you?”
His gaze tightened, boring into her. She wasn’t frightened of him. He could order everyone else around, but she wouldn’t allow him to do the same with her.
“I am a person with a heart and mind of her own. Once, you understood that. Once, I thought you admired that about me. You certainly wrote plenty of letters claiming so, but then again, you have proven time and again your actions are not aligned with your words. No, I will not be ordered around to meet your whims.”
“I will leave by morning. Come to my rooms and I only need a few moments. It will be done with, and we can both continue on with our lives.”
How neat and tidy his solution was. And how absolutely ridiculous.
