Page 26 of Married to the Forbidden Duke
She scoffed, but the world felt unsteady, and she rested one hand on his shoulder to support herself. “Should I begrateful?”
“Not grateful, just—” He looked away, running a hand through his hair. “I am trying, Alice. Can’t you see that?”
She scoffed. “By hiring a physician to cure the injury you caused?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Is there truly no way for you to forgive me? Not now, I know, but in time?”
She frowned at his face, trying to parse his emotions. This was the man she hated—she could never forget it. But he seemed almost… frustrated by her response to the night…
“I said I would destroy you,” she whispered, her fuzzy memory offering her that detail, at least. “Itoldyou.”
“And if destroying me means destroying yourself?”
“What do I have left?”
“The entire rest of your life,” he pressed, that frustration burning in his voice now, holding her chin tightly.
She still didn’t attempt to pull away. If anything, having him this close was helping to keep her steady. She’d never imbibed so much before, and she hadn’t known how unstable it would make her feel. As though nothing—not the world around her, not her emotions—could be relied upon to be where she expected it.
“…So?”
Finally, he released her, moving back, and she almost fell on her face. The anger in his voice burned stronger now.
“If you were anyone but you, and if I were not aware of the debt you hold in my name, I would not let your behavior as it has been thus far pass. I know how you must feel, and I am trying to be understanding—I am trying even to give you the freedom to hurt me if you so desire it, but why do so at your own expense?
“It is not in my nature to allow such disrespect. And yet here I am doing precisely that, letting you make a fool of me, a fool ofyou.” He dropped his hands and looked at her. “Is this to be the rest of our lives?”
He was standing now, towering over her, and some distant part of her wondered if she had somehow succeeded in bringing about his misery—not by her actions as such, but by his guilt. Byfeeling as though he could never speak out against her, even if she did him wrong.
How deep did his guilt run?
Nausea consumed her, and she pressed a hand to her mouth suddenly. “I think I am going to heave,” she breathed shakily.
His eyes flashed, and for one moment, she thought he would leave her to the consequences of her actions. In his position,shewould—and she would have hoped that he would never come through the other side of it. She would have wished every bad thing on him.
Instead, he looked at her with that lingering ire in his face, before stooping and finding a chamber pot. Clean, to her relief, as he held it under her face and she expelled the contents of her stomach against the porcelain. She thought she felt his hand on her hair, an odd tenderness she couldn’t account for, but when she leaned back, the world returning a little to its proper place, he merely retreated to the door.
“I will bid you a good night, wife,” he stated coldly when he reached the doorway. “Next time, may I suggest not going as far out of your way to make a fool of us both. You will find your life with me will be far from pleasant if you do, and there is nothing I can do to save you from that fate.”
She blinked, her eyes damp with tears that had surged along with her nausea. Acid burned her throat.
“Would you?” she whispered, searching his face for some sign of a lie.
Where was it, the proof that he was amonster? She needed that proof, wanted to cling to it, but she could find no signs of it in the man that stood before her.
“Would I what?” he asked.
“Would you save me from misery if you could?”
He tilted his head, as though searching for an answer, although she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it.
“Of course,” he said at last, his voice low. “From the moment—for five years, that has always been my calling, even if I hadn’t known it at the time.” He inclined his head, then he was gone.
By the time Jenny arrived to put Alice in bed, she had fallen asleep on the covers.
The next day, Alice woke with a terrible headache and nausea that persisted even after she ate some dried toast and consented to a bath.
Sothiswas the consequence of over-imbibing... Odd that any gentlemen chose to do it at all, really.
