Page 81 of Duke of Iron
May looked at her, seeing her properly for the first time. The beauty was brittle, the wit more a habit than an instinct. The envy radiated so brightly that May wondered how she had missed it all this time.
“You Grace—” Christie began, but May cut her off with a raised hand.
“I did not know this was your true perception of me.” May smiled, a little too brightly, while Christie looked down, caught off guard. May almost pitied her.
“It truly is a relief when one discovers who hides the dagger behind their backs,” May continued.
“Your Grace, do you not think your words too harsh?” Kitty asked, and May’s eyes narrowed.
“Did you not think your speculations about my marriage too harsh? Or is that a rule you are exempted from?”
Kitty’s lips parted, but May did not wait for a reply. “Lady Kitty, Lady Christie, I have no wish to be seen with simple-minded harpies with neither true friends nor prospects.” She turned to leave but paused. “And if a proper scandal is what you wish to see, I would be delighted to provide you one!”
With that, she made her way to the door, feeling a thousand eyes follow her. She let them look and let them whisper.
Outside, the air was crisp and bright, and she breathed it in until the chill reached her bones. She was not fragile, not the way they wanted her to be.
She was the Iron Duchess, she was herself, and that would have to be enough.
And if it is not,she thought,then the world will have to manage without me.
Twenty-Four
It is this writer’s sad duty to report that the Duchess of Irondale was seen yesterday in a most unladylike altercation at the Oxford Street tea rooms, where she verbally sparred with Lady Kitty Monrose and Lady Christie Portwell. By some accounts, the Duchess reduced both adversaries to silence (and, in one version, to tears), though the cause of such a heated dispute remains unknown. Did the poor ladies, darlings of the ton, provoke Her Grace with some private knowledge? What secrets lie behind the closed doors of Irondale House—and what will the Duke do, now that his own wife is the talk of the city?
Logan groaned and shoved the sheet away. The servants had left him alone for the better part of an hour, but the rumble of activity in the front hall warned him that it would not last. He downed his coffee, stood, and strode from the breakfast room, fully prepared to storm the fortress of female drama on the other side of the house.
He found May exactly where he expected—perched on the pale blue sofa in the drawing room, bathed in a rectangle of sun that painted her in rose and gold. She wore that particular shade of pink—soft, bordering on indecently pretty—that made him want to both scold and worship her. She sat with her knees drawn up, slippers kicked off, head bent over a battered novel that looked more scandalous than the newsprint.
She did not notice his arrival at first, and he watched her—just for a moment, just long enough to let the frustration drain away.She is not what I expected,he thought,but she is what I want. Every damn day, I want her more.
He forced himself to clear his throat. The sound snapped her out of reverie; she looked up, her eyes huge behind the spectacles, hair barely controlled in its ribbon. She did not stand, but she did close the book, and with it, the illusion of innocence.
She regarded him, all wariness and challenge, and said, “Good morning, Duke.”
He held up the Mercury. “Do you know what this is, May?”
She blinked. “The paper?” her voice was arch, but he saw the instant of dread flicker through her expression.
He advanced, stopping just short of the sofa. “One of five,” he said. “Every scandal sheet in London has your name in it this morning. I have not checked the betting books, but if they do not have odds on our separation by the end of the day, I will eat my own hat.”
May sighed, set her book aside, and planted her feet on the carpet. “It was not a brawl, Logan. Not even close. The Mercury is exaggerating.”
He arched a brow. “They are reporting that you made Lady Kitty Monrose cry.”
May’s mouth quirked. “That part is true. But only because Lady Kitty is the sort who weeps if her pudding is not to standard.”
He tried to glare, but the image was too absurd. “Explain yourself, please.”
May folded her arms, but did not shrink. “They were saying terrible things, about you, about us, about the baby. Not even clever things, just the usual. That I was unfit, that you’d married me for a bet, that Rydal was some orphan you’d collected to curry sympathy.”
Logan felt a hot pulse of anger at the back of his throat. “And what did you say in reply?”
She shrugged, a gesture that somehow encompassed all of Mayfair. “That they were small-minded harpies with no true friends or prospects, and that if they wished to see a proper scandal, I would be delighted to provide one.”
He stared at her. “You threatened them with violence?”
“Verbal violence,” she said. “If I had truly wished to harm them, I would have corrected Lady Christie’s Latin in front of the entire room. Or worse, her pronunciation of French.”
