Page 41 of Her Tiger of a Duke
“Well, how did you manage?”
She laughed sadly, her playing slowing slightly.
“I did not, for the most part. I had my friends, but they did not help in the way that they thought they did. They simply told me that I was brilliant and capable, as though that made a difference.”
“And then they told you all of the reasons why you should do what is impossible?”
“Precisely,” she agreed, only to then look at him with a puzzled expression. “But you are capable of almost anything. What is it that people expect of you?”
“It is rather silly, in the grand scheme of things.”
“Nonsense. If it is a burden on you, then it is important.”
She stopped playing, folding her hands in her lap and looking at him innocently.
“If it is the household, I know that it is a large change, but I assumed you would be happy with it.”
“And I am. It is a lot to take in, but I will come to love it entirely. You have done very well, and Ella has done well to clean it all off you.”
She giggled; her body pressed against his in order to fit on the seat beside him.
It was the perfect time to tell her the truth, that she had not gone mad and imagined a painting, and he had kept something from her for entirely too long and she needed to know, and he hoped that she could forgive him for hiding something so important from her.
But he could not bring himself to. Once again, she looked at him and all he could think of was every bad thing that he had ever done, and the guilt consumed him.
“You have already met my friends,” she said excitedly, “but I am most excited for you to truly come to know them. I know that I said they were of little help when it came to my father’s expectations, but they meant well. They are, in truth, excellent friends, and you will love them as much as I do, I am certain of it.”
“And what of their husbands?”
“They are utterly undeserving of my friends,” she joked. “No, they are great in their own rights, though they tend to be rather brooding at first. You have that in common with them.”
“Do you think I am brooding?”
“No, you are more mysterious. I do not know what it is, but I always have a feeling that there is something that you are not quite telling me.”
He felt as though her eyes were burning into him, but she simply laughed and took a book, sitting unceremoniously on a settee and beginning to read.
She had no idea how right she was about him.
CHAPTER 17
Beatrice could hardly sleep the night before her friends arrived. She worried that she had not done enough to prepare, grinned at the thought of seeing them, tossed and turned in anticipation, and then she saw the sky lightening and at last gave into her exhaustion.
She had worked tirelessly in the household and wished that Owen had been more receptive of it, but she understood. That was how his home had been since before he was born, and it was a lot of change very suddenly and she could not blame him for being shocked.
She dressed for breakfast and met him at the table. Her appetite was incredible, and she did not have much time to prepare any last-minute treats that she thought of, which meant that she had to eat quicker than was polite. She noticed, however, that her husband was doing the same.
“Do you have somewhere to be?” she asked.
“Do you?”
“The kitchens,” she replied sheepishly. “I did not have the time to make biscuits late last night, so I hoped to make some now.”
“That is such a coincidence, for I was going to do the same.”
He smiled at her, and there was that familiar sense of longing that she had continually pushed aside. He was most confusing, for his words told her that he wanted a simple arrangement, but then he went and acted in a way that proved otherwise. She wished that she knew what he wanted, but it was a lovely way to be treated all the same.
“Would you like to assist me, then?”
