The Duke and the Accidental Bride (Duchesses of Convenience #5)

Chapter 27

Chapter Twenty-Seven

" A re you certain that you have been taken ill?” Isabella asked her sister.

“Of course I am!” Louisa snapped. “What? Do you think that I am lying?”

“No, I did not say that,” Isabella assured her. “It is just that...” She clicked her tongue, careful not to speak too out of turn. “You do not look particularly ill, is all. Certainly not on death’s door, as you claim.”

“Well, I feel horrendous! And you should know better than to be this close to me – I do not want you to risk catching it.”

“I am sure I will be fine.”

Louisa pushed her lips together into a pout. “Oh yes, do not listen to me. Or anyone, for that matter. Do as you please because in the world of Isabella, things just tend to work out for the best, don’t they.”

“I...” Isabella frowned, a little taken by her sister’s snappy attitude. “I would not go so far as that.”

“Be sure to let me know if you have fallen sick in the next day or two – when you do,” Louisa said rightly, even a little viciously. “Maybe then you’ll learn to listen for a change.”

Isabella furrowed her brow at her sister but did not push the issue. She knew Louisa as well as she knew herself, because the two were twins, and she could sense that for reasons unknown to her, Louisa was trying to start a fight.

Typical. To escape the constant shouting and arguing of my new home only to find it in my old one. Can’t my life just be peaceful for once?

She had found her twin sister in bed this morning. So taken with illness that she had refused to see Isabella at all. But Isabella, forever the stubborn sister and wanting to make sure that Louisa was not as sick as she claimed, forced the issue and went and saw her anyway.

Louisa was not pleased at the sight of her sister coming into her room, and she had pulled the covers up over her head as if hoping that Isabella might not see her there.

It was clear to Isabella immediately that her sister was not ill. But that just raised the obvious question, why was she lying in the first place? Something was clearly wrong and Isabella, ever the stubborn one, was determined to find out what.

“Tell me that I will at least be seeing you next week,” Isabella continued pleasantly. “The Stonesides are throwing a garden party and mother has told me that you were invited.”

“Maybe,” Louisa mumbled. “I have not decided.”

“There will be many an eligible bachelor there, I am sure,” Isabella prodded. “You would be a fool to miss it. The Season is almost over, Louisa and to be honest with you, I am surprised that you here in bed rather than battering away men with sticks for surely you have dozens to contend with.”

“Perhaps if I was not sick, I might be.”

“It should be a fun day,” Isabella continued, pushing her lips together with frustration because Louisa had turned around and was refusing to look at her. “It has been a while since I attended a garden party.”

“So... you and His Grace will be attending.”

“I would be surprised if we do not.” She chuckled lightly. “Even if Duncan protests, I am sure I can change his mind. In ways that I have since learned he is not at all opposed to.”

“Urgh,” her sister groaned. “Did I not tell you that I am sick. I could do without the bawdy commentary, thank you.”

Isabella leaned back. “Sorry, Louisa. I did not mean to... to upset you.”

“I did not say that you upset me!”

“Turn you off, then. I was only joking.”

Louisa did not respond right away, and Isabella could just about see her mind turning as she worked to her next point. A point which Isabella was starting to get ahead of because her sister was not exactly the queen of subtlety.

“So... it is true then,” she began, still not facing Isabella. “You and His Grace?”

“What of us?”

“That the two of you are... are happy?”

Isabella considered. But only for a moment. “Yes, I would say that we are.”

“No more fighting? Or arguing? No more wanting to kill one another?”

Isabella laughed softly. “Not as much as we once did. In fact, we have not fought in weeks, which might sound boring and a tad vanilla for some, but it has not been anything of the sort. We are...” A tiny spread across her face at the thought. “It is as I said, we are happy.”

And they were too.

For five days now, happiness was the theme of their marriage and Isabella could not have been gladder for it. There was no more fighting. There was no more arguing. There was no more annoying and frustrating the other for no other reason than to drum some excitement into their marriage... not to mention, some passion.

It just wasn’t needed anymore. Thanks to their conversation at the Clementine Ball, and then what happened as a direct result of that conversation, she and Duncan had discovered a new side to their relationship that was as impossible to comprehend as it was wonderful to live in.

No longer fighting at every waking hour, their personal relationship was growing beyond anything that Isabella had thought might be possible when concerning the sullen, brutish, bully of a Duke who she had married all those weeks ago. Now, Isabella knew that wasn’t him at all.

The Duncan who she now knew... well, he wasn’t nearly as bad as she had thought. Not even close.

“Well, I am very happy for you,” Louisa said, sounding not at all like she meant it. “Wonderful. I wish you both eternal happiness and sunshine.”

“Louisa...” Isabella half leaned forward to touch her sister on the shoulder. “Is something the matter.”

“I told you, I am sick!”

“Not that.” She rested that hand on her sister’s shoulder and, unsurprisingly, Louisa shrugged it off. “Is something else the matter? Concerning myself and the Duke?”

“No. Why would it be!”

“You tell me.”

Isabella could feel it coming. The pent-up rage in her sister. The anger she had been consumed with these past few days building and readying to explode because she wanted to let her feelings known.

“It’s you, Isabella. That is what is wrong.”

“Me? What have I done?”

“Of course you do not know!”

“How can I know if you do not tell me?”

“You wish to know?” Louisa demanded. “You really wish to -- I am through being there for you, Isabella,” she cried. “I have tried. The Lord knows that I have but… but... but I just cannot do it anymore. I am sorry.”

Isabella leaned back, more confused than anything. “Being there for me? Louisa, what on earth are you talking about?”

“You and His Grace!” Louisa cried. “This… this facade that you have thrown up and just expect me to go along with. Time and time again, that is all I do. And I am sick to death of it, Isabella. Sick!”

“You’re jealous?”

“I am not jealous!”

“I do not know what else it could be,” Isabella said. “And where I do not expect you to be happy for me, Louisa, I do expect you to treat me with some common decency.”

“And why should I? When all you do is lie.”

“When have I lied?”

She scoffed. “I do not believe for a second that His Grace has changed the way you claim – or that you have, for that matter! For weeks you told me what a monster he is, and now what? He’s suddenly an angel borne from heaven and --”

“I never said that!”

“It’s all a lie,” she continued hotly. Furiously! “I have tried to work out why you are lying. I have thought about it for days and days, Isabella. And I cannot think of a single reason, save for the fact that you are scared.”

Isabella laughed, because she could not help herself. “Scared of what?”

“Of being hurt,” she said, the anger fading, taken now by sadness. “Worse than that, admitting for a change that you are – that this perfect marriage is not what you have told us and then having to face the fact.”

“Louisa…” Isabella had no idea what to say, or what to make of her sister’s outburst. “I –"

"And do you know what the worst part is?” Louisa sniveled, tears beginning to form in her eyes. “It will not last – it cannot last! For a few weeks, maybe. Even a few months. And all the while you will rub it in my face and force it down my throat because you love knowing that you have what I never will.”

“Louisa --”

“But then it will change,” she spoke over Isabella, her voice turning thick. “It cannot last, you know that. The Duke might be kind and caring now, but that is not who he is. I know it because you have told me countless times! He will change, he will hurt you, and then I am expected to be there for you when all the while I knew this to be coming because even a blind man can see the truth.”

Isabella scoffed as she attempted to rear up and shoot down Louisa’s arguments. “I am having a hard time understanding what exactly it is that you are upset about? Is it that I am happy? That my happiness will not last? Or that you are doomed to die alone and for some reason this is all my fault?”

Her chin was wobbling furiously. “I am angry because ever since we were little girls, your whims and fancies have been my burden. When you are upset, who do you think it is that comforts you? When you do not get your way, who is it that has always been there to help? Me!”

“Oh, I am so sorry to have burdened you with the chaos of being my sister,” Isabella said sarcastically.

Louisa shook her head, eyes now welling with tears. “You wish for me to be happy for you? You wish for me to dance for joy because for once you and the Duke are not fighting? And then what? When he hurts you, when he pushes you away, when he turns back into who he has always been? When you come to me in tears as you always do...” Her face dropped, her chin shook, tears streamed down her cheeks. “I do not think I will have the energy for it, Isabella.”

“And here I was, thinking that as my sister you would support me. No matter what the cause.”

“You cannot have it both ways. You cannot expect me to be over the moon for this --” She shook her head in Isabella’s direction. “And then curse the man’s name when he hurts you. And all the while, as you filter between love and madness, I am left to wonder if I will ever experience what you have. Even if it’s only for a moment.” Her lips curled and she shook her head again. “I am happy for you, Isabella. But that does not mean that I do not have the right to be furious. Furious because I know that he is going to hurt you, even if you refuse to admit it. Furious because… because I hate to see you hurt, and every time that I do, it kills me. It truly does.” And with that, she turned around and lay back down.

Isabella was speechless.

She stared blankly at her sister, unable to comprehend where this was coming from. And what it all meant.

Louisa just doesn’t understand! That is why.

“I am sorry you feel that way.” Isabella stood up, doing her best to ignore her sister’s tears because she was starting to feel angry. Even manipulated. “Truly, I am. But your preconceptions about my relationship with Duncan are wrong.” She strode from the bed and to the doorway, pausing in it so she could look back at her sister. “For the first time Duncan and I are getting along. And rather than celebrate that with me, you choose to be petty. You think so little of my husband, perhaps you should look at yourself.”

A final glare at her sister’s head, a pause because she wanted Louisa to turn around and apologize – she did not like fighting with her sister.

But Louisa did no such thing, leaving Isabella to storm out, furious in ways she had not felt in weeks.

Most of it was for her sister, as was deserved. But it was later, as she began to calm down on the carriage ride home, that Isabella wondered if maybe the reason that she was so angry was because her sister’s words had struck just a little too close for her liking.

Yes, she and Duncan were close right now. And yes, they were happy and thriving. But among it all, Isabella had wondered from time to time if it might last. If such a thing was possible? Was Duncan just one bad day away from snapping and turning back into his true form? And was Isabella just one day or boredom away from provoking it?

She had never wanted to marry in the first place.

Duncan was not the kind, caring, even softly spoken man whom he had been at pains to portray himself as these last five days.

Eventually, something in this relationship was going to give. There would be a breaking point, a test that would force their true selves to the fore once more. And when that happened, what would become of this marriage?

Would they take it in stride and grow from it, proving that they were in fact meant to be together?

Or would it shatter their reality and be the final straw that broke them apart once and for all?