Page 15 of Married to the Forbidden Duke
He would drown under the potency of this realization.
He had done this. Unintentionally, of course. He would never have hurt herintentionally.
But what did that matter?
He swallowed back the lump in his throat.
“I lost everything that day,” she was telling him in a low, heated voice, and it was all he could do to look up at her and meet her gaze. “And you continued living your life as though nothing had happened.”
He thought back to all the scandal sheets dragging his name. The days and nights lost at the depths of a bottle before he turned things around again. The sleepless nights tossing and turning as he relived that awful day in his nightmares.
Easy to look at him from the outside and think he had emerged unscathed; yet he could not tell her, this girl, that he had returned to that day more times in his memories than he could count, and that he had wanted to find ways of redeeming himself.
In his worst moments, he had prayed in an empty church and demanded to know why God had taken those innocent lives and not his.
Those days were behind him, but her words still scorched his soul in a way that reignited old wounds.
“I accept your hurt, and I know I deserve your ire,” he began, endeavoring to keep his voice steady, “but I will not allow you to make assumptions. You know very little about my life, dear Alice.”
She started at the sound of her name, and looked at him, shock in her eyes—and horror. “Don’t call me that.”
“We are husband and wife now, whether you like it or not. And while I have no intention of being cruel to you, and I hope that your new position will ease the magnitude of my mistake, I will not allow you to cast unfounded allegations at my head.”
“You don’t know how things have been for me,” she fired back.
“Then all you need do is tell me.”
“As though I would ever confide in you!”
“Then you will not find it surprising when I choose not to confide in you.”
Frederick turned to the window, watching the passing countryside and wondering what magnitude of mistake he had made by bowing to public pressure and marrying a woman who hated him so thoroughly.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Alice arrived at the Duke’s townhouse, expecting to find everything not to her taste. But, as she entered the front hall to be greeted by the servants lined up for her, she found the building to be spacious and elegant. If anything, it might have been decorated by a woman, with flowers in a vase by the window, and several lovely pastoral paintings on the walls.
The marble floors and pillars supporting the large stairway were perhaps a little overly grand for her taste, but when she hobbled into the drawing room, she found it was a pleasant, cozy space, and the library—fully stocked—seemed more so.
“I spend the majority of my time here,” the Duke began, and she vowed never to set foot in there again.
He said nothing as she struggled to make her way up the stairs, merely watching her progress with hooded eyes. She wondered if he was reflecting on what a mistake he had made in marrying her.
She was not the beautiful, accomplished, devoted wife he had no doubt hoped to find. And she was certainly no Lady Penelope Millington.
“You do not need to accompany me, Your Grace,” she muttered through gritted teeth when they reached the landing and the gallery, framed by paintings of his ancestors. Heavens, he had so many of them. She half wanted to stare at them, to explore how many had the Duke’s sharp nose, the command in his eyes, or even just the strength in his bearing.
All this would be easier if he had a hunchback like King Richard III.
“And this will be your bedchamber,” he said, opening a door and ushering her inside. She stared at the large four-poster bed in some shock, though she didn’t know why. Of course there would be an enormous bed. She was a Duchess, the new wife of a Duke. No doubt everyone expected certain things.
Her aunt had even tried to give her the talk about what to expect when he inevitably visited her bed on the wedding night.
She folded her arms. “I presume that door leads to your bedchamber,” she said, nodding to a door set on a side wall.
“It does,” he replied.
“Lock it.”
