Ice Cold Duke (Frigid Dukes #2)

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

“ W hat did you do that for?” Lady Emery Abaddon snarled the moment Lucien shut the door of the carriage behind him. “You have ruined my entire life!”

As Lucien blinked and sat back in his seat, staring across to where Lady Emery sat, her face a mask of fury and hatred, he had to remind himself that her name wasn’t Lady Emery Abaddon anymore. Nor was it Lady Emery Grove as it would have been had she married his brother as she was supposed to.

It was Her Grace, Duchess of Dredford.

And although he didn’t show it, he was just as unhappy about that as she was.

“Calm yourself,” he said coolly, folding his hands in his lap. “You should be thanking me for saving your reputation, not berating me with foolish, childish claims that I have ruined your life.”

“You have ruined my life!” she shouted, a flush of scarlet coming to her cheeks. This, he knew, was the flush of anger.

In all his life, he had never seen a woman as angry as she was now, and if he hadn’t been working hard to keep himself cool and collected, he might have been a bit taken aback by the force of her passion.

“And for what?! You don’t want to marry me. You don’t even know me! In all the years we have known each other we have barely interacted, barely even spoken. And now you have forced me to become your wife? Tell me, do you want to be miserable, Your Grace, with a wife you do not love, respect, or even know?”

Lucien didn’t answer. Instead, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the note he’d found on Henry’s nightstand. Without a word, he shoved it at her, and she took it.

“I found this on his dressing table,” he said. “And next to it, I found a letter from you, as well. Yours was addressed to him, but his was written to me. In it, he states the same insanity that your letter does, that he does not love you and that he does not wish to marry a woman he sees more as a sister than a wife.

“Not only that, but he goes on to express the delusional wish that his marriage be like our parents’, a so-called ‘love match’, although I cannot know what Henry thinks our parents’ love match looked like, seeing as how he was still very young when they died.”

“What is wrong with him desiring a love match?” His wife demanded, crossing her arms over her chest. “I wished for a love match as well! Doesn’t anyone with a heart want to spend their life with someone they love?”

“ Not everyone wants a love match,” Lucien corrected, trying his hardest to keep his voice level and cool. “In fact, what I like most about being a member of the aristocracy is that we have discovered the key to a good, healthy marriage is to not marry for love, but to combine assets and find long term companionship with someone of a similar upbringing and values. Marriage is not about love, it is about the practicality of raising children and continuing on one’s family line.”

His wife stared at him, her mouth slightly ajar. “You can’t mean that. You sound absolutely heartless.”

“I’m not heartless,” he snorted. “I’m strategic. I grew up in a home with parents who’d had a love match, parents who were madly in love, and believe me, it is not all it is promised to be.”

This seemed to pique her interest, and she tilted her head to one side curiously.

“What do you mean? Henry never said anything of the sort. He only ever had good things to say about your parents’ relationship, how different it was from most marriages in the ton , how much hope it gave him.”

“Well, Henry was eight when they died, so he isn’t exactly a reliable witness,” Lucien said dismissively. “Most of his ‘memories’ of our parents are reconstructions of events he heard in story form from friends, relatives, and servants.”

This made Emery pause-- am I supposed to call her Emery? Duchess? Wife? He wasn’t entirely sure . She was his wife, after all, but he barely knew the girl and Emery felt a bit too informal.

“Well then you must tell me the truth,” she said, sitting back against her seat and staring at him with a challenge in her eyes. “What was so damaging about having parents who loved one another?”

Lucien was taken aback. No one had ever asked him directly about his parents’ relationship and what it had done to him, and the forthrightness of his wife’s question startled him. Most ladies of the ton were too polite to ask personal questions, and if they did, they did so in a roundabout way that wouldn’t make it seem as if they were being nosey or intrusive.

She may have grown up a lady, but she never spent a Season in London, learning first hand all the subtle rules of propriety. That’s why she’s so bold and unscrupulous.

Well, he didn’t have to answer her. The last thing he wanted to do was go into his private feelings about his parents--the feeling of abandonment, their preoccupation with one another. The way they had constantly fobbed off duty and responsibility to focus on their relationship... No. That was none of her business.

“That’s not what is important right now,” he said instead, gritting his teeth. “What’s important is making sure that this marriage doesn’t end in scandal. It is already dangerously close to slipping into one! You and Henry have behaved reprehensibly, risking both your families’ reputations. Not to mention what would happen if either of these letters fell into the wrong hands! Any servants could have found them and sold them to a gossip rag, and then we all would have been plunged into ruin.”

The stare she gave him was icy and unapologetic. “I would rather be ruined than miserable,” she said, and the force of her conviction was so strong that for a moment, Lucien had no response. She knew exactly what she wanted, and if it hadn’t reminded him so much of his parents’ selfishness, he might have been impressed.

She’s just like them: choosing her happiness over the needs and responsibilities of everyone else.

“I don’t know why your parents’ love made you so bitter, but it does not give you the right to treat me this way,” she said, wrenching him out of his thoughts. He looked at her, and the look on her face chilled him to the bone: it was one of pure distaste.

“I’m not some thoughtless child unaware of my duty, like you think I am,” she continued. “I understand responsibility and duty to one’s social class and parents. That’s why I got all the way to the day before my wedding without complaint. But last night, I realized with every ounce of my heart that I couldn’t do it. I have always desired a love match, and after years of denying that part of me, I finally demanded it. But because of you, I will now never get the chance to have one. Just as I finally escaped one loveless arranged marriage I had been dreading for years, you forced me into an even more loveless marriage of convenience!”

Despite the cool head that Lucien had been trying to maintain, he could feel himself growing hot with anger. But at whom or what? The situation, surely, and assuredly at Emery, but also at Henry, at his parents, and perhaps most of all, himself. The situation was careening out of control. He’d done what he thought was best considering the situation, and it wasn’t as if he were happy about it either.

“You may say you’re not a child unaware of duty, but then why did you stumble into my room in the middle of the night?” he asked at last. “Those weren’t the actions of a proper lady.”

“That was an accident,” she said, flushing but not looking away. “I was trying to find Henry, and not for anything improper--merely to beg him to let us call off the wedding.”

Lucien rolled his eyes. “Oh yes, not improper at all.”

“It was unfortunate I found you instead, but it didn’t mean you had to marry me. No one knew about it.”

“Your friend knew.”

“And she wasn’t going to tell anyone!”

“Believe me, gossip always spreads,” he snapped. “Always. But fortunately for you, I put an end to that gossip by marrying you. All you have to do is make sure something like that doesn’t happen again.” He gave her a small, condescending smile. “Your days of behaving recklessly and not minding about your reputation are over, sadly.”

To his surprise, this made Emery laugh out loud. She threw back her head and laughed with her mouth open, more loudly than he had ever heard a lady laugh. He stared at her, shocked, as she looked back at him, her eyes still filled with mirth.

“What days of behaving recklessly?” she asked, still hiccupping with laughter. “I’ve never done anything reckless in all my life until last night! And despite what old matrons--and apparently you--might think, one’s reputation is not entirely destroyed the moment you stray just a bit from what others think is appropriate.”

“How would you know?” he snapped. “You’ve barely spent any time amongst the ton . You do not know how vicious it can be.”

“I read the gossip columns, and I see how lords and ladies go in and out of favor. Yesterday’s scandals are forgotten in favor of new ones. It’s vicious, yes, but it doesn’t have longevity. Besides, it is unavoidable that one is going to stray outside the bounds of propriety now and again. Not to mention that different people have different standards for what they consider to be proper. You can’t make everyone happy!”

But Lucien was shaking his head. “You are such a naive little thing,” he said, laughing coldly as her face went from amused to furious. “And you know nothing about Society. It is a good thing that I saved you from the life of a ruined spinster because believe me, if I hadn’t married you, I have no doubt that’s what would have become of you. It wasn’t something I wanted to do--I had no desire to marry--but now I see that you were very lucky I did.”

Even as he said these words, Lucien knew he was going too far. But something in him couldn’t stop itself. All the shock, disappointment, and anger were building inside of him, making him say the most horrible things he could think of. It was as if he were a boulder, rolling down the side of a hill, and the momentum was making him careen faster and faster toward destruction.

His wife’s face was now so red that he thought she looked as if she had been burnt by the sun. But when she spoke, it was in a low, furious murmur.

“I never asked you to marry me, Your Grace. And if it wasn’t for your blind obedience to the rules you think everyone is following, then maybe you wouldn’t have had to marry at all--especially a woman you so clearly despise.”

“I do not despise you,” Lucien said at once, affronted that she would imply something so ungentlemanly. “Apologize to me at once for such an insult! As if I would ever despise the woman I took to be my wife.”

Emery pressed her lips together, and he felt the wave of anger inside of him begin to crest. At that moment, the carriage rattled to a stop, and he glanced outside. They had arrived at his estate. It wasn’t far from the Hillsboroughs’, which had been what had facilitated the friendship and engagement between Henry and Emery.

Before getting out, he turned back to Emery. “Apologize,” he said again. Though once more, she said nothing. She wouldn’t even look at him.

Before he could stop himself, Lucien sat forward and, reaching up, took Emery by the jaw, forcing her head to turn and face his. She let out a small sound of protest and anger, but he didn’t stop. As their eyes met, he was shocked to see it wasn’t hatred that stared back out at him, but fear.

“Perhaps it is time I remind you,” he murmured, “in no uncertain terms, that while I will not demand gratitude or your happiness, I do demand respect. Just like the respect I have shown you by not letting you ruin your future, your reputation, or that of your family.”

Her eyes grew wide, and then he saw the shimmer of tears in them. It was such a shocking moment of vulnerability that he released her jaw and looked away. He hadn’t been expecting tears. Despite everything, she had seemed like the kind of woman who never cried.

Without another glance at her, he threw open the carriage door, and, without waiting for a footman to help him or lower the stairs, jumped down onto the drive below, leaving his wife behind in the carriage.