The Duke's Stolen Bride Read online

  Her arousal faded away as confusion filled her. What was he doing?

  His gaze met hers. “Sorry. You didn’t finish, did you?” He reached for her. “I can—”

  “What did you do that for?” she asked. No, she demanded.

  “Do what?”

  She paused, thinking how to say it. When it came to matters of intimacy, she still had a lot to learn, it seemed. “At the end . . . you curtailed yourself.”

  He lifted his head to look at her, his expression befuddled. “Curtailed?” Understanding lit his eyes. “Oh. That. You mean why did I not take my release inside you?”

  Her face heated. He had no problem expressing himself when it came to such matters.

  She nodded. “Yes. Why did you do that?”

  “So I would not get you with child.”

  Because that would be bad.

  Unwanted.

  She had rather suspected that, but she had to know for certain. She did understand how anatomy and procreation worked, after all.

  She could only stare at him, thinking about that. Thinking that he did not want to get her with child. This was to be her life. Her future. She needed to understand.

  “Why?” she whispered.

  “I lost my first wife in childbirth. I’ll not take such a risk again.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath. Moistening her lips, she began carefully, “You do not want children?”

  “God, no.”

  She could not stop her flinch.

  He noticed it and continued in an almost gentle voice, “I was careless, I admit. With you. In the beginning, that first time. I will not be so careless anymore.”

  She reeled from what he was saying, her mind working, absorbing the significance.

  He did not want children.

  He would not have children with her.

  She would not have children. Ever. Not as long as she was his wife. Which would essentially be . . . forever.

  As far as she was concerned, children were the one benefit to marrying—the one perk that made giving up her freedom tolerable.

  When she had decided that she would never marry, never give up that much of herself, never lose her freedom, that had been the one point, the one fly in the ointment.

  Marrying him, she had thought she would at least get this out of the union.

  But she had been wrong.

  She would not have even that.

  She would not have love in this union, and she would not have children. She felt these blows keenly.

  “Good of you to explain this to me before you stole me away to be married,” she accused hotly.

  He released a rough bark of laughter. “As though you had a choice?”

  Fury seized her. “I have a choice. I will always have a choice in my life!” she argued even as doubt crept through her.

  “Do you believe that?” he demanded, the anger in his voice matching hers. “You believe Lawrence to be a choice? Public ruin? Cruel ridicule? Poverty? You believe these choices? Valid choices over me?”

  She hated that he was right. She hated that she felt such a fool in this moment. “Oh, you are an arrogant bastard.”

  “Well, you have the right of it there.” He shrugged, reaching for his robe.

  “You seem very proud of that.”

  “I simply know who I am. Tell me, Marian. Do you know who you are?”

  “Of course I know myself.”

  “Because you don’t seem to have a very good handle on your situation. You are a woman without family to care for you. Without wealth. Without position. You seem to be missing this self-awareness if you think you have any choice better than me.”

  She released a stinging breath. “Thank you. Thank you so much for relating to me how utterly powerless I am.” Her voice choked a little at the end of her words. “I suppose I should just fall at your feet in gratitude that you should want me as a wife.”

  “I didn’t say—”

  “Didn’t you?” She hopped up from her bed.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Away from you,” she snapped.

  “Save yourself the trouble. This is your room. I’ll leave.”

  “You do that,” she agreed, the sting of unshed tears burning her eyes.

  She was being foolish. She knew it. This was all about the fact that he didn’t want to have children with her. He wouldn’t even consider it. Not that he had ever promised to give her children in the first place.

  A week ago she had not possessed the comfort and security and luxury of being his wife. Some would call her greedy. She was certain of that. Some would say she should be content. Satisfied.

  She was not. She wanted more from him. She wanted more from their life together. Perhaps even everything.

  She could not talk herself out of her disappointment. Her anger flared hot in her chest and had her thinking horrible things—had her saying horrible things that she did not mean.

  She called out after him before he passed through the adjoining door. “Should I find that I want a child, I am certain I can find someone to give me one . . . if you will not.”

  He stilled.

  She froze as well. The only thing moving was the violent hammering of her heart, threatening to burst free of her chest.

  He took two steps toward her and stopped. His dark eyes fastened on her and reminded her of the first time she met him and thought him the very devil—all ruthlessness.

  “No man, save me, will ever touch you. As you pointed out, you made your choice and I’m it.”

  Fury radiated off him. She thought he would say more on the subject.

  Some men abused their wives. She knew of this shameful behavior. Her father had tended to more than one such wife on different occasions. Marian braced herself, wondering if this was the moment when she discovered he was such a man. She didn’t think it possible. She didn’t think he had it in him.

  Turning, he stormed from the room, proving her correct. Nate was not such a man.

  She had pushed him, angered him, hinted to him that she might cuckold him. He had not lifted a hand to her. Naturally. Because he was a good man.

  She fell upon the bed. Dropping her face into a pillow, she let the softness absorb the sound of her sob. She almost wished he wasn’t the man she thought him—a man she could esteem. A man she could love.

  Then she wouldn’t be so disappointed. She wouldn’t hurt so much.

  The day dawned colder than expected, certainly colder than it had been of late. It might be spring, but apparently Mother Nature hadn’t been alerted to that fact.

  Marian dressed warmly in the bedchamber she had been assigned.

  Attired in a wool riding habit, she descended the staircase. Voices carried, and she followed them into the small, dark-paneled dining room to find her sisters eating as though they were preparing for a month-long fast.

  “Marian!” Nora cried out around a mouthful of food. “Join us!”

  Marian stepped forward and filched a piece of toast. “I shall just take this.”

  Charlotte eyed her up and down. “Are you going somewhere?”

  “I thought I would ride over to the house and get a few of my things.”

  “Oh, Mr. Pearson promised to send a crew of servants—”

  “I just want a few things of my own for now. I’d like my favorite shawl.”

  She really just wanted some time for herself to walk the floors of her own home. This was the duke’s house. She felt like a stranger here. She didn’t know if she would always feel that way, but that’s how she felt right now . . . and she presently craved a return to what she knew. To what felt safe.

  Bessie had already been settled in to the duke’s stables. A lad appeared to help her saddle her mount.

  “Would you like me to accompany you?” He moved as though to ready himself for the task.

  “No, I will do well on my own. Thank you.”

  He looked at her doubtfully. “Are you certain, Your Grace?”

  She
stopped, startled at the formal address. He meant her. She was Your Grace.

  A blasted duchess now.

  “Yes. I am quite capable. Thank you.”

  And then she was off, riding into the bitter cut of wind despite the offer of company. She didn’t want company. She wanted solitude.

  She felt like a fraud. An imposter. She was no duchess, and she actually knew something on the matter. She had been in the employ of a duchess once upon a time. Clara’s mother had been elegance and nobility personified. Marian could never be that.

  She pushed Bessie as hard as safely possible. The old girl still had it in her. She broke into a trot, seeming to relish the cold breeze on her face.

  The front gate to her house swung open with a neglected air, and she felt a pinch in her heart as she passed through the gate, a longing for all those happy days through the years.

  After securing Bessie in the stables, she took herself inside her house.

  It already felt empty. Vacated. Even though they had not officially moved out yet, there was a lifelessness to the house that brought tears to her eyes.

  She walked through every room, examining it and its items and thinking how she might incorporate some of those things into her new home. The duke’s home was so dark. Maybe they could lighten a few rooms with paint or a lovely wallpaper.

  “I thought you would turn up here sooner or later. I wasn’t certain you would be alone, however, so this is quite the gift.”

  She spun around with a gasp. Lawrence stood in the parlor’s threshold.

  She swallowed against the boulder-sized lump that formed in her throat. “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here.”

  “I think an explanation was owed me,” he replied with a flare of his nostrils.

  “You were threatening me!” Heat flashed through her.

  “You were promised to me—”

  “You’re a monster! I never wanted to marry you. Never! You knew that! I don’t owe you any explanation.”

  Shaking her head, she stormed past him, ready to flee.

  He had intruded upon her quiet time. She no longer wanted to be in this house. She no longer wanted to be anywhere if he was there.

  He grabbed her arm, seizing hold of her, stopping her from fleeing.

  She looked down at his hand circling her forearm. His fingers were as wide as sausages. “Unhand me.”

  His lip curled in a sneer. “You made a fool of me, duchess.” He spit the last word as though it were the foulest thing.

  She tried to twist her arm free, but he only tightened those fingers. “You’re hurting me.”

  “Maybe you deserve to be hurt.”

  She stared into his face, fear washing over her as that penetrated.

  She was all alone with him in this house.

  He thought she deserved to be hurt. He could hurt her. It was that simple.

  She searched deep inside herself for the courage she did not feel right now. Determined to at least feign it, she growled at him through tightly gritted teeth, “Unhand me at once, sir.”

  He brought his face closer, his rancid breath a hot puff against her skin. “You think yourself so much better than me?”

  He was incapable of reason, of compassion. She managed to wrench her arm free of him. She rubbed at the bruised flesh. No doubt there would be marks.

  Stepping back as far as she could, she squeezed past him in the threshold. She exhaled, relieved that he had let her go without attempting to stop her.

  She had thought that he might—

  Pain exploded in the back of her skull. Her knees buckled and she went down, her hands coming up to catch herself, but it did no good.

  She hit the ground. Hard.

  Spots danced before her vision. She managed to roll to her side. She tried to lift a hand to her head, but her limb felt like lead. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t move at all.

  She blinked tearing eyes. Lawrence’s face swam above her.

  A scream lodged in her throat as his thick hands came toward her.

  Darkness closed in, descended, blotting out everything else.

  Chapter 25

  Nate stayed away all day.

  He told himself it wasn’t avoidance. He wasn’t running away. He wasn’t hiding from his wife. One uncomfortable argument wouldn’t send him fleeing.

  It was all bollocks, of course.

  He’d never wanted to marry again. He’d never wanted another wife—and he certainly didn’t want to have a child.

  He well remembered that night. It was the stuff of nightmares. The screaming agony. The blood. So much blood and loss. All for naught. For death only.

  He would not put Marian through the trauma of childbirth. He would not wish it on any woman, much less one he cared about, one he . . .

  He stopped himself from taking the thought one dangerous step further.

  From the moment Marian entered his life, she had challenged everything he thought he wanted for himself.

  No one had forced him to marry her. There had been no family pressure. Certainly no Society pressure. No angry papa after him.

  Still, he had done it. He had married her. He had stolen her away the instant he thought he might lose her.

  She had married him, of course. What other recourse did she have? What were her options? Poverty? Ruin? Lawrence?

  It made him ill, twisted his stomach into knots to think she had married him because he was the least bad option.

  He didn’t want to be her savior.

  He wanted her to want him. Him. Not what he could do for her. Not what he brought to this marriage. Foolish, he supposed.

  Marriage was only ever a negotiation. It didn’t have anything to do with softer sentiments. Marriage was an exchange of goods. What one person could bring to the other. He had done this before, after all. He knew what it was all about.

  He’d told himself he would never repeat that mistake.

  His marriage to Mary Beth had been every bit of that. True, they had been childhood friends. There had been an attraction. At least on his part. But he knew she would have never married him if not for his title. She had been fond of him, but in love with his title.

  Mary Beth had died cursing him. In pain. Agony. Her lifeblood ebbing away as the midwife attempted to revive both her and their stillborn son. All for naught.

  He’d told himself he would never do it again. Never go through that.

  He enjoyed his life now. Or rather, the way it had been.

  But then he had changed it. He had changed everything. Now he found himself married to a female with appetites that matched his own. She didn’t keep him at arm’s length. She was insatiable, craving him as much as he craved her.

  This could be different. Not like before.

  The treacherous voice whispered through his mind.

  He entered the house, his steps at an eager clip. Despite their earlier fight, he hastened upstairs, wanting to see her, needing to see her.

  “Oh, there you are, Your Grace!”

  He looked up to see one of Marian’s sisters hurrying toward him. Charlotte, he thought her name. He winced. He really should learn the names of his sisters-in-law. Nora, he remembered. She had made quite the impression upon their first meeting, after all. Charlotte was the quieter of the two.

  “Are you looking for me?”

  “Actually, we’ve been looking for Marian. She’s been gone for quite some time. We thought you might know where she is. It’s nearing the dinner hour and we were a little concerned.” Charlotte nodded to the younger girl beside her. “Nora rode to our house to see if she was still there, but there’s no sign of—”

  “She went to your house? Alone?”

  Charlotte nodded.

  Uneasiness curled through him.

  Without a word, he turned and headed back out the way he had entered, the speed of his strides steadily increasing until he broke into a run.

  Marian woke to the gradual awareness that one side of her was pleasantly wa
rm and the other side jarringly cold. She kept her eyes closed and held herself still, assessing, aware enough that something was not right. What happened? Why was her head throbbing?

  A loud boom of thunder sounded overhead and she flinched. Rain pattered on the roof.

  She shifted slightly and pain jolted through her at the motion.

  Her mind backtracked, reaching for memory, struggling to recall what happened.

  She’d gone to her house.

  Lawrence had been there.

  He struck her. Lawrence. He had done this to her.

  She resisted surging upright. No sudden movements. She needed to think. She needed to be calm. She knew this. Somehow, instinctively, she knew this. If she panicked, all would be lost.

  The rain continued to beat a steady rhythm on the roof. A fire crackled somewhere close. Hard ground was under her, but she didn’t think she was still in her house.

  She inhaled. It didn’t smell like home. It didn’t smell lived-in. It wasn’t familiar. The air here was stale.

  Ignoring the pounding in her skull, she eased open one eye, daring to take a peek around.

  A great fireplace crackled in front of her, explaining why one side of her was so warm.

  She was lying on a rough wood floor. No rug. Her nose twitched at the army of dust balls everywhere.

  Another flinch as another boom of thunder reverberated on the air.

  She opened both eyes. She knew this place. She recognized it. It was the hunting cottage on Nate’s property. She’d peered through the windows enough times to remember.

  A neglected cottage in the middle of nowhere, forgotten by the world—that was why they had thought the place to be such a perfect location to meet for assignations. No one would ever see them coming or going.

  Her stomach sank. No one. Because no one and nothing was out here. No one to hear her scream even if it wasn’t storming.

  It was strange to find herself in the place she had thought to be her sanctuary with the duke at one time. Their little love nest was now to be her prison. Her prison with Lawrence.

  Perhaps even a coffin.

  No. She would not die. She would survive this. Whatever was to come. Because she would be calm. She would not panic. She would think. Think think think.