Page 36 of Captured By the Cold Duke
It must take a great deal of effort to speak to me, being so shy and having gone through such a dreadful experience.
“Then is something else amiss?” she asked. There was such genuine concern in her eyes that Thomas felt his heart go outto the girl. Around them, the other ladies were hotly discussing Samantha’s latest move, and no one seemed to be paying attention to them.
“No…” he began, but then he paused.You have seen her at her most vulnerable, he reminded himself.Perhaps you can give a little bit back.“I was just thinking about my character,” he said at last. “Sometimes I worry I will let others down. It can be hard when people have such high expectations of you.”
“I understand that,” Lady Chastity said. “But there is no way you could let anyone down, Your Grace.” She paused. “I wanted to thank you for how you helped me with Lord Dawson. My sister keeps saying how chivalrous it was of you to help me, but I don’t think that was why you did it.”
“No,” Thomas said quietly. “It wasn’t.”
“It was because you believe in doing the right thing,” she said. “I can tell.”
“I hope I do.”
“And that’s why you won’t let anyone down,” she continued. “Because you try. No one can always do the right thing. None of us are saints, after all. But when we know what is right and what is wrong, when we can try, then we won’t let others down. Not when they can see how we try.”
“That’s very wise,” he said, looking more closely at the girl. “How are you holding up, after everything?”
She shrugged, glancing down. “I’m well enough. I think I learned a valuable lesson about trusting people. Not everyone deserves my trust just because they say the right thing when it’s easy. The people I want to trust do the right thing even when it’s hard.”
“I wish you hadn’t had to learn that lesson that way,” Thomas said. “But I have known quite a few people like Lord Dawson, and I understand how they can take you in.” He glanced at Cherie. She was laughing at something the duchess was saying. “You’re very lucky to have these women looking out for you, Lady Chastity. They are good souls, all of them.”
“And so are you,” Lady Chastity said.
He wasn’t sure he believed that yet, in his heart, but as Thomas gazed at Cherie, he knew that it was who he wanted to be.
Maybe the real me was angry and unworthy, too bitter at my father to go after what I wanted. Maybe the real me was so busy working to impress my father that I never tried to impress the only person I ever wanted. But that doesn’t mean the new me has to be as well.
Thirteen
“Your Grace, you have a visitor.”
Cherie looked up from where she was embroidering a seat cushion to see the butler holding out a tray, a calling card on it. She took the card and glanced at the name on it. Immediately, she felt herself go cold.
She glanced back up at the butler. “Is His Grace here?” she asked.
“No, Your Grace. He is at his club this afternoon.”
Cherie felt her heart race. She knew that her husband would not be pleased that Constantine Banes, the Earl of Rochford, was visiting her when he wasn’t home. He had been so tense at the wedding breakfast when Lord Rochford had appeared. And truthfully, Cherie was a bit nervous to see him as well. After how he had tried to marry her against her will…
But what choice did she have? The Duchess of Wheaton could not deny entry into her home to her husband’s cousin.
Not just Thomas’s cousin, but his heir, since we won’t be producing a child…
“Show him in,” she heard herself say.
The butler bowed and left the room, and Cherie had only a few seconds to prepare herself before the Earl of Rochford was swept into the room, a cold smile on his thin lips.
“Your Grace,” he said, bowing low over her hand as she extended it. To her deep displeasure, he kissed her hand, and she felt herself shudder. There was something so unnerving about the earl, although she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. Maybe it was the cold, dead look in his eyes…
“It is a pleasure to see you again,” the earl said. “Especially under better circumstances than the last time we saw one another.”
“Oh, you mean the circumstances where you tried to coerce my cousin into giving you my hand in marriage?” Cherie asked sweetly, as she settled herself back on the sofa. “Or the circumstances where you showed up at my wedding breakfast and were rightly shouted at by my husband?”
To her surprise, the Earl of Rochford laughed. “The latter, I suppose,” he said, seating himself across from her without waiting for her to invite him. “That was a rather unpleasantscene. But then again, I wouldn’t expect much more from the Duke of Wheaton. Even when he was in India, word of his temper reached all the way to England.”
Cherie bit her lip to keep from speaking. Part of her longed to ask Rochford what he meant by that, but a larger part of her didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of asking.
“So how have you been settling into your life here?” the earl asked, looking around at the parlor where she was sitting with a critical eye. “Are you enjoying being the Duchess of Wheaton?”
