into the street, bag and baggage, reputation be damned. She could scream and cry all she liked, but where there was no wedding licence, there was no wedding. He was bound by no legal contract and no amount of crying women and hand-wringing preachers would persuade him to keep her.
Besides, the quickest way to discover her honour or lack of it might be to do the deed. Seeing the wench naked, he could look for a telltale bulging belly or lack of modesty.
But if she was innocent? Then planning was required.
He arrived in his room and paused with his hand on the knob. How best to set the scene? His room or hers? Hers, he suspected. Then, when it was through, she could have the comfort of familiarity, if such could be gained by twenty-four hours’ occupancy.
Dressed or undressed? Undressed would be easier. There was certainly a pleasure in slow discovery, but, perhaps in this case, expediency might be better.
Undressed, then. But how far? Not totally. To arrive naked in her room? Certainly not. If she was a virgin, there was no telling how much information she’d received on the activities of the marriage bed. Unclothed and fully aroused was no condition in which to give anatomy lessons. Perhaps even now, she was sitting primly in her bed in her best nightrail and cap, waiting for her husband.
And the thought made him smile.
Very well. Her room. He’d arrive in his dressing gown, and sit on the corner of her bed so as not to alarm her. They’d chat. And soon he would be sitting beside her. He would take her hand to reassure her. Then he’d take her lips.
And soon he’d take the rest of her and the business would be done.
He stripped without the help of his valet, and put on a brocade dressing gown. He pulled the knot of the robe tight and nodded in approval of himself. There. A plan was in place and things would continue to their successful conclusion.
And he opened the connecting door to her room.
They could continue, except for the absence of one important component. His wife was nowhere to be found.
She glared in to the pantry. How did the house run on such a meagre store of food? A bit of cheese and bread was all she wanted, but she’d expected to find more. The snack she was taking seemed hardly fit for the mice she’d startled when she came into the room.
Such stale bread. And such dry cheese. It was as unpalatable as the lunch and the supper. She imagined writing a plea to her family.
Dear Cici and Father,
I have come to Devon and married a duke. And I’m
more tired and hungry than I have ever been in my life.
Please let me come home.
‘What the devil are you doing in the kitchen?’
And why must everything you say to me be shouted? she wondered, rubbing her temples.
The duke was standing in the doorway, his arms folded in front of him. His words rolled over her in a torrent. ‘I came to your room, expecting to find you waiting, and had to chase through the whole of the house before I found you. And here, of all places. Did you expect to sleep next to the fire, like the kitchen cat? Was I to call the servants to locate you? Wouldn’t that be rich? To have the household know that his Grace has had a wife for less than a day and already misplaced her.’
‘Because it is all about you, isn’t it?’ she snapped. ‘And about what people think. That is why you had to marry me. That is the only reason I’m still here and I expect you’ll have cause to mention it whenever I make a mistake for the rest of my life.’
‘If you wish to stay in this house, then, yes, it is all about my wishes. And if I say that what people think is important, then you’d better believe it and act accordingly.’
‘But that’s just it,’ she retorted. ‘I don’t wish to stay in this house. What reason would I have to stay here?’
‘Many would think that a great house and a duke is reason enough,’ he growled.
And the rage and confusion broke in her and poured out. ‘Then many people have not met you. If they had, they might change their opinion. For I swear that I have never been so miserable in my life. Sir, you are foul tempered and foul mouthed.’ She sniffed the air. ‘And drunk. You do nothing but storm at me, but expect me to wait meekly in my bed for your arrival. You were eager enough to kiss me at the altar and yet show no hurry to come to my bed on our wedding night. I sat there for hours, and finally was too starved to wait longer and came to the kitchen for some food.’ She gestured around her. ‘And, lo, you keep none here. What a surprise that things should be managed more like the poorest hovel than the greatest of houses. Are you a miser as well as a bully, that the meals in this house should be so poor and the rooms so cold and filthy?’
He looked, she thought, like a dog that had been slapped across the muzzle in the moment of stunned realisation before he must choose attack or retreat. And she felt the world shift under her as she understood what she had done. The Duke of Haughleigh was unlikely to turn tail and run.
‘If you feel that way, madam—’ and his voice was ice and not fire ‘—then perhaps I should pack you off back to London.’
And she realised that she’d gone too far. She’d failed her father. She’d failed Cici. She’d enraged the duke. And she had nowhere to go. The room spun around her.
‘Damn.’ He saw her begin to crumple and lunged to catch her before her body hit the floor. Who would have thought, after such an admirable rage, that she would turn out to be a fainter? Then he pulled her body close and knew the answer. The poor thing was skin and bones. She hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d claimed that she was cold and tired and hungry. She was merely stating the truth of the abysmal hospitality he’d shown her.
He scooped a hand behind her knees and lifted her in his arms, surprised that, despite her height, she was so light a burden.
She roused and struck feebly at his chest, murmuring, ‘Put me down.’
‘And let you fall to the ground in a heap? Certainly not.’ He negotiated the stairs and made his way towards their rooms.
When she realised the direction, she struggled against him, but he held her tighter.
‘No. Please.’ And he felt the tremor rush through her body as they crossed the threshold to her room.
He looked in amazement at the top of her head, trying to see down into the rat’s nest that this woman must call brains, and suspected he understood. ‘Madam, fear not. Necrophilia is not among my many vices. I do not mean to drag you unconscious to bed and force myself on your lifeless body.’ He dropped her down on to the bed, and she curled up in to a ball, hands screwed in to fists and pressed to her face.
He looked down at her in the firelight, surprised at what he saw. She was amazingly thin, and the flames cast shadows in the deep hollows under her eyes and cheekbones. The nightrail was not the delicate trousseau he expected to find, but rough cotton, darned many times and a little too short for her.
He pulled her hands away from her face and looked down at them, rubbing his thumbs gently along the palms. They were rough with calluses and showed fresh blisters and the healing cuts
