Page 17 of A Bride for the Icy Duke
“I have not,” she answered. “But now you are expecting me to leave the place I have made my home.”
Without thinking, he reached out his bruised hand, and she took it, her eyes widening as she encountered his bandage.
“I am sorry about that,” she breathed, touching him so gently that she caused him almost no pain at all.
“It’s all right.”
She glanced to one side, seeing her two friends beaming at her. In response, her face softened, and she smiled. Alexander watched the way her brows relaxed, the way tension left the corners of her eyes. In defiance, she had been striking, but in affection, she looked gentle and lovely.
The smile hit him unexpectedly in the chest. For so many years, his life had been empty; aside from Samuel Godwin, no one had been especially pleased to see him. He was a duke, bearing a duke’s responsibilities and all a duke’s sycophants, but very few people bore him genuine affection.
Lydia would not be the one to offer him that, he reminded himself. Tomorrow, they would leave, and that would be the end of everything.
Still, as an olive branch, he asked, “Are you enjoying this evening?”
She looked back at him, the warmth in her eyes fading into cool indifference at the sight of him. “Oh yes,” she replied. “It has been perfectlyilluminating.”
Alexander was under no illusions about what that could mean.
The dance ended, and he bowed over her hand, brushing her gloved fingers with his mouth. They tensed in his hand, and when he glanced up at her, she was regarding him with an odd expression on her face.
“Careful,” she murmured, tugging her hand free. “Or people will wonder at our annulment.”
Without giving him time to respond to her words, she turned on her heel and stalked back to where her friends were waiting for her.
He rubbed his forehead, wishing he could take the edge off this constant aching in his limbs. Just a few drops—
No.
Nausea clawed at his insides as he strode toward the refreshment table and threw back yet another glass of wine, praying that it would dull the cravings at least a little. Knowing that there was likely laudanum somewhere in this house was a physical pain he must fight.
The sooner he left, the better, no matter what his little hellcat of a wife had planned.
CHAPTER SIX
For a few blissful minutes when she awoke the next morning, Lydia forgot about Alexander’s existence. She dressed after the soiree, tired but happy with her memories of dancing and her friends. All these people having arrived to see her off. As always, she drank her hot cocoa and selected a morning dress, then descended to the breakfast room.
There, however, she was confronted with a tall man sitting at the breakfast table.Herbreakfast table.
Her heart pounded as she recalled their conversation the previous evening. She haddancedwith him, and he had all but told her that he never wished for their marriage to be anything other than this. A farce.
In essence, he could not wait to dispose of her.
The Lydia of a year ago might have curled up and died at such a thought, mortified beyond belief that he thought so little of her.But this Lydia had been entertaining for a year. For the span of an entire year, thanks to him, she had been a duchess, and now, instead of humiliation, she felt ire.
Marie had suggested she encourage the duke to fall in love with her, but Lydia knew better. There was no softness in him that spoke of a willingness to love. At least Marcus, Marie’s husband, had been prepared to remain married to her.
Hers abandoned her.
Their dance had been enough to confirm that he would not fall for whatever feminine wiles she possessed—and more than that, she had no desire to make him.
Still, she had less desire to leave.
As though sensing her presence, he glanced up, frowning when he saw her still in the doorway.
“Sit with me,” he spoke in a deep timbre. “We should have a substantial breakfast before we set off.”
Lydia knew for a fact that her dresses were not packed; nothing she had was ready to go.
