Ice Cold Duke (Frigid Dukes #2)

Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

“ Y our Grace, you’re back!”

Lucien frowned at his butler, who was standing in the doorway of Dredford Castle with an anxious look on his face. Although the words the butler had spoken were innocuous enough, Lucien didn’t like the tone of his voice, as if he wished that Lucien had not returned to the castle just now.

“Yes, Wilkes, I’m back,” he said. “And I have faced a very perilous journey in getting here. The roads were completely rained out, and I was stuck in Cornwall for two nights waiting for the mud to harden so that the carriage could get through. It has been an absolute nightmare.”

“That does sound very perilous,” Wilkes agreed. “I just wanted to tell you, sir, that--”

“Can it wait, Wilkes? I’m very tired.” Lucien moved past the butler and began to remove his coat, which the butler helped him with. It was soaked through, and Lucien’s clothes underneath were also wet. Although he’d been in the carriage, he’d had to get out at several points during the ride today and dig the carriage wheels out of the mud. He was cold, wet, and exhausted, and all he wanted was a nice hot bath and to sit in front of a cozy fire with a whiskey.

“Well,” his butler said, shuffling nervously, “it’s just that--”

Crash!

The sound reverberated through the entrance hall from somewhere upstairs, and both Lucien and Wilkes started and then stared up at the ceiling.

Very slowly, Lucien turned to look at his butler. “What,” he asked, through gritted teeth, “pray tell, was that?”

His butler blanched. “I tried to stop her, Your Grace!” he cried. “I told her you wouldn’t approve! But she wouldn’t listen to me! She told me that she would talk to you about it when you returned, and anyway, that Ladies Leah, Celeste, and Eve were far too attached to them to let you give them away now.”

“What are you talking about?” Lucien thundered, dread pooling in his stomach. “Attached to them? Attached to what ?”

“I--”

But before the butler could answer, Lucien’s question was answered for him as the sound of several dogs barking filled the upstairs corridor.

Oh, good God, what has my wife done?

Letting out a low, angry sound, Lucien strode toward the staircase and then took the stairs two at a time. At the top, he turned right, toward the portrait gallery. But he’d barely gone two steps when the doors flew open and three puppies came running out into the hall, their little feet echoing surprisingly loudly on the marble floors. Behind them were his sisters, all three of whom were wearing their nightgowns and laughing as they chased after the puppies. And behind them, smiling indulgently, was his wife.

Lucien felt the rage inside of him surge. At the same moment, his sisters caught sight of him, and the laughter seemed to die on their faces instantaneously. They came to a halt and, demurely, they looked down, hanging their heads.

The same could not be said for his wife. Emery strode forward, a cool smile on her face, stepping around his sisters in order to greet him.

“Ahh, there you are,” she said dismissively. “It’s about time you returned home.”

“Excuse me?” he spat, raising both his eyebrows.

“It’s been a week,” she said, putting her hands on her hips, “and none of us have even known where you are. Did you think, perhaps, that it might be best if you had written to let us know what had happened to you?”

“It has been raining nonstop for days,” Lucien said shortly. “I tried to write, but the letters couldn’t be delivered. It’s been dangerous for horses to travel at high speeds.”

Emery narrowed her eyes. “I suppose that makes sense. Where were you?”

Lucien chose to ignore this. I will not be interrogated by my wife! Instead, he looked around at his sisters, then at the puppies, who were still jumping on one another and generally making a ruckus at the top of the staircase.

“What is going on here?” he demanded. “Why are there three animals in this house? And why are my sisters in nightgowns? Don’t you know how highly improper that is?”

“We adopted these puppies,” Emery said, smiling. “We found them abandoned in the woods and--”

“And you thought it was a good idea to bring them into the castle?” Lucien asked, incredulous. “They could be riddled with diseases!”

“They’re not riddled with diseases,” Emery said, her face flushing with annoyance. “They’re very sweet little things, and--”

“And it wasn’t your responsibility to adopt them! They have a mother, I presume, who should be taking care of them.”

“Lucien, please,” Leah said, stepping forward, a nervous expression on her face. “We searched everywhere, we really did. But the mother was nowhere to be found. If we hadn’t taken the dogs in, they would have died!”

“Anyway, when were you even able to find puppies in the woods? With all the rain, surely--” he stopped speaking as realization hit him, and another wave of anger surged through him. He rounded on Emery. “Did you take my sisters outside in the rain? Don’t you know how bad that is for their health? They could have come down with colds!”

“It wasn’t raining when we went out,” Emery said, looking taken aback. “And I didn’t know it was a crime to bring ladies outside! Don’t you think they could actually benefit from fresh air and exercise?”

“Not in the early spring when they could become ill! What if Leah came down with something right before her debut? What would happen then?”

“I’m perfectly well, Lucien,” Leah pleaded. “Emery only wanted us to spend some time outside, have a little bit of fun.”

“Fun?” Lucien repeated. “Fun is for those who do not have responsibilities to fulfil. And yours is to be well and fit so that you can marry well and produce heirs for your future husband.”

“She’s not a breeding mare!” Emery shouted, and Lucien turned, very slowly, to look at his wife. She was glaring at him with such a deep level of dislike that he almost took a step back. But of course, he stood his ground.

“I am aware,” he said coolly. “She is, however, a lady of the ton . And it is her responsibility to continue the family line. Something she can only do if she is a proper, well-behaved young lady, not the kind of woman who traipses around through woods rescuing dogs and then runs around the house in her night rail! Do you have any idea how improper that is? What if someone were to call and see her like that?”

“None of us are out yet,” Leah pointed out in a nervous but determined tone of voice. “No one is going to call on us, Lucien.”

Lucien closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. “That’s not… that’s not the point. It is unladylike, and it sets a precedence for other inappropriate behaviors. Such as going out in the rain and adopting strays that are probably flea-ridden!”

“They’re not flea-ridden,” Emery said flatly. “We would have noticed. And we had Cook make up a bath for them that she swears gets rid of any fleas.”

Lucien opened his eyes and lowered his hand. His wife was giving him a hard, intransigent look, and it dawned on him then that she really didn’t have any idea how dangerous these ideas were that she was introducing to his sisters.

She was a sheltered girl who had never spent a Season in London. She didn’t know what his sisters would face once they were out on the marriage mart, the competition they would be up against. Competition where one wrong move could ensure they never had a chance to find husbands.

“Emery, I would like to see you in my study,” he said, his voice coming out flat and cold. He glanced at his sisters and then the puppies. “Alone.”

He turned and swept back down the staircase toward his study. At the bottom of the stairs, he turned to make sure Emery was following him, then continued on to his study. There, he opened the door and paused, waiting for her. She arrived more slowly, looking up at him with a strange expression on her face as she walked past him and into the room. Then he followed her inside and closed the door with a snap.

“That was very dramatic,” she remarked, sitting down at the chair in front of his desk without waiting for his invitation. “Was it really necessary to call me in here like that?”

“It was,” he said curtly, rounding the edge of the desk and then seating himself across from her in his leather, wingback chair.

She smirked at him and crossed his arms. “Why? Am I in for a scolding?”

He stared at her, uncomprehending. “Is life just one long joke to you?” he asked. “Do you think that one can get away with whatever they want and never have to face the consequences of their actions?”

His wife blinked, and the smirk on her face vanished. “Of course I don’t think that,” she said, and there was surprise--and even genuine hurt--in her tone. “I am currently living with the consequences of both our actions. I am currently married to a man who despises me and yet still trying very hard to make the best of a bad situation.”

“Well you’re not making it better!” he snapped. “You are undoing years of work! Years of careful guidance and etiquette training that I have given my sisters in order to ensure that they are the most accomplished, and unimpeachable young ladies--young ladies who are able to have their pick of any gentlemen and therefore secure the best possible futures. And you are ruining that! You are undoing all that work with your relentless pursuit of what is fun ! Life is not fun, Emery. Life is hard and full of disappointment and challenges. And the sooner you accept that, the happier you will be.”

“I know that life isn’t only fun,” she said, her voice low now, and husky. “Our marriage is living proof of that.”

“Then why are you determined to undermine me and take the girls on these escapades that will only fill their heads with notions that they should spend their days having fun instead of doing their duty?”

Emery stared at him, slightly open-mouthed. “Because I like them very much and I want them to enjoy their lives,” she said at last. “I don’t understand why that is so offensive to you!”

“Because people who prioritize enjoying their lives shirk their duties and end up making bad choices!”

“Not necessarily!”

“Is that so?” Lucien’s eye had just caught on a piece of paper that the butler must have put on his desk--a piece of paper that looked very much like a bill. Frowning, Lucien pulled the paper closer and swept his eyes over it. As he did, he felt his stomach lurch.

A wave of cold passed over him, and for a moment, he didn’t move; he was frozen with both shock and vindication. Of all the things to find at this moment… the perfect proof of everything he’d just been saying.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked, holding up the bill.

Emery frowned at it and shook her head.

“It’s a bill that I seem to have just received from the modiste in town. In it, I see that I am paying not for one new gown, but for three new gowns--and not your run-of-the-mill, standard dresses that ladies are in need of, but three of the most expensive gowns I have ever heard of.”

His wife, he was pleased to see, had gone very pale. “But… You told me to take Leah to the modiste,” she said weakly. “I was just doing as you asked.”

“I said that once we were in London, then perhaps then you could accompany her to the modiste. I did not, however, tell you to go there the moment you moved into this house and spend a small fortune on three gowns ! How could she even need that many?”

“They weren’t all for her,” Emery said at once. “The other two were for Eve and Celeste.”

Lucien felt as if his stomach had dropped out of him. Two of the most expensive gowns imaginable for girls who are not even out yet?! What was she thinking?

All the anger inside of him felt as if it were about to explode. It had been a week since the wedding--a week of feeling angry at his brother, at Emery, at himself--a week of being stuck in Cornwall because of the rain, then stuck on the road, and now to be back home, drenched and cold, hungry and exhausted, and to hear that she had blown that much money on dresses?!

It was almost more than he could take.

“That was more than a third of Leah’s entire budget for the Season,” Lucien heard himself saying. His emotions were all over the place, and he knew that he couldn’t keep it together any longer. It no longer mattered what was and wasn’t appropriate to discuss in front of a lady. “You’ve used up a whole third!” he shouted, and she flinched slightly at the volume and force of his words. “What am I supposed to tell Leah now? That she isn’t to have any more new clothes for the Season?”

“I-I’m sorry,” Emery stammered. She was as white as a sheet and staring at him with wide eyes. “I d-didn’t know.”

“No, you didn’t! But you didn’t ask or think about it beforehand. You just spent all the money you wanted on frivolous things because you wanted to have fun . Because you think life is to be enjoyed, instead of to be taken seriously. Well, because of you, the financial ruin that I saved my family from these last few years is once more a threat. That is two years’ of savings down the drain in one shopping spree!”

Lucien found he couldn’t go on, anger and pain making it impossible for him to articulate himself, and a ringing silence filled the study. He put his head in his hands and breathed in deeply, trying to calm the hammering of his heart. A minute or two passed in silence, until Lucien felt as if he could speak calmly again. He looked up then, only to see that his wife was watching him carefully.

“I am very sorry about the dresses,” she said quietly. “Truly, I am. I didn’t know any of this, and I never would have spent the money if I had.” Her expressions hardened somewhat, and she raised her chin in a defiant gesture. “But if you had spoken bluntly about this to me beforehand, none of this would have happened. If you had treated me like an equal, like a partner, instead of like a naive little girl, then I would have known to spend sensibly at the modiste.”

“I didn’t think it was proper for me to speak to a lady about money,” he said simply. All the fight seemed to have gone out of him, and he could only speak in a monotone. “And you must admit that you behaved rashly.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I behaved like a duchess who is under the impression--an impression you work hard to maintain, by the way--that her husband is rich. It won’t happen again. But I also think this is an example of how your ideas of what is ‘proper’ and ‘correct’ got in the way of doing what actually would have made more sense. I understand, of course. It is difficult to speak about money problems, probably especially to a new wife. But these are things we must discuss now that we are married.”

This was surprisingly sensible, and Lucien realized he had no response to it. After a moment he said, “I will be cancelling the orders for the dresses.”

“If you must.” She hesitated, then leaned forward slightly. “Although if you don’t mind, I would very much like to use a portion of my dowry to pay for the dresses. The girls were ever so excited to have such fine dresses made, and I know it would make them very happy to have. Please… let me do this for them. I care for them very deeply, and I don’t want them to be disappointed.”

These words made Lucien pause and sit up a bit straighter, noticing her as if for the first time. He had not expected this. From her behavior so far, he had assumed she was a rash, reckless person who didn’t take responsibility for her actions. But here she was, offering to pay a huge amount of money for the dresses, and all just to make his sisters happy. It was a very decent thing to do.

“That is very kind of you,” he said after a moment. “And I will consider it. I need to use part of the dowry to…” he hesitated, and she gave him a look that seemed to say, Go on . “I need to use part of it to pay off my father’s debts,” he said hurriedly, clearing his throat and looking away. “But I think there will be enough left over to pay for the dresses.”

“Oh, good,” she said, smiling then. “The girls will be so pleased.” It was the first smile that she had aimed at him since, well, maybe ever, and to his surprise, it lightened his mood a little to see it. It’s good to know that we don’t only argue with one another, I suppose. “From now on,” she continued, “I will check in with you before taking Leah shopping for things she’ll need for the Season.”

“Thank you,” he said, inclining his head slightly. “Speaking of which… There is something I need to discuss with you. You remember what I said before, about how we must pretend to be happily married in order to deflect any scandal that our hasty marriage might have caused?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Well, when I was away in Cornwall--”

“Ahh, so that’s where Henry ran off to, is it?” Emery interrupted, looking intrigued. “Is that where you have been this whole time? It would explain why you were gone so long.”

“Yes. It’s Henry’s favorite of our family houses, so I suspected he would be there.”

“And was he?”

“Yes, but as I was saying--”

“And what did he say?” she asked, leaning toward him. “Was he sorry for having run off? Did he offer to duel you when he found out you’d stolen his fiancé? Or was he happy that you’d taken his place?”

Lucien didn’t really want to relive the fight with Henry, but he did feel that Emery was owed an explanation of the events that had affected her so much. “He felt as you did,” he said stiffly, “that the marriage was wrong. And he felt bad for having put me in the situation he did. Although he… He seemed to think I shouldn’t have.”

Emery snorted. “Well, that makes two of us.”

“Anyway, as I was saying, when I was in Cornwall, I came up with a story that might help sell the version of events where you and I are happily married.”

“Oh?” she raised her eyebrows. “And what might that be?”

He hesitated, a touch embarrassed by what he was about to say, and then forced himself to proceed. “I thought perhaps we could put about a rumor that you and I had fallen in love before the wedding, but that, because you were already engaged to my brother, we both tried to ignore our feelings and do our duty. We will say that despite this--our selflessness and willingness to sacrifice our own happiness for our family--Henry discovered that we had feelings with one another, and, given his friendship with you and his love for me, decided that he did not wish to stand in our way, but ran away to Cornwall in order to allow us to marry one another.”

Emery stared at him, a small, astonished smile on her lips. “And you just thought of this?” she asked. “Over the last few days?”

“Yes,” he said stiffly. “Why?”

“It’s just… something out of a romantic novel.”

“Er, I suppose. I wouldn’t know, though. I haven’t never read a romantic novel.”

“Are you sure?” Emery asked, and there was definitely a note of laughter in her voice now.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Lucien said, frowning at her.

“I’m just saying… That’s a very elaborate and romantic backstory for a man like you, who despises romance so much, to come up with.”

Lucien frowned at her. “Do you think it is too ridiculous? That no one will buy it?”

She smirked now, and he felt his stomach lurch uncomfortably at the sight. “Not if you really sell it,” she said. “I just worry that it will be hard for you, since you aren’t used to showing any tender emotions toward women.”

“I worry more that you will be the problem,” he snapped back. “No one who knows me will believe that I fell in love with a woman as uncouth as you.”

“Uncouth?” Emery laughed. “I’m the daughter of an earl!”

“And yet you act more like the daughter of a butcher.”

She shook her head. “Well then, how do you plan to convince people that you are so wildly in love with me, if I really am such a coarse, uncivilized woman?”

Now it was Lucien’s turn to smirk. “For starters, you will be starting etiquette lessons. Hopefully that way, when we leave for London in a month, you will be sophisticated enough that the ton will believe a man such as me could love a woman such as you.”

“You really know how to compliment a woman, Your Grace.” She rolled her eyes. “Fine, I will agree to your little scheme, and to your etiquette lessons. But only for the sake of your sisters! I am very fond of them, and I wouldn’t want any scandal attaching to them because of this disaster of a marriage.”

“Fine.” Lucien didn’t care about her reasons for playing along, as long as she did her part.

“But you, Your Grace, will have to learn how to compliment a lady better,” she said, giving him a wicked smile. “Starting now.”

“Now?” he repeated, staring at her blankly. “Why?”

“To apologize for yelling at me earlier.”

Lucien felt his face flush with embarrassment and annoyance, but she merely raised an eyebrow. “Go on then,” she said. “Give me a compliment. And remember: it’s all to save your sisters from ruin and convince the ton that we are violently in love. If you can’t even say one thing you like about me, then we are doomed.”

Lucien hesitated. He looked over his wife, then sighed. “Very well. I suppose that you are… surprisingly selfless.”

“Surprisingly selfless.” She smirked again. “I suppose that’s not the worst compliment. But why do you think that?”

He frowned at her. “This wasn’t part of the agreement.”

“Just tell me.”

“Well, I suppose I thought that you were engaging in all this reckless behavior simply because you had a disregard for others. But now I see, after you offered to pay for the dresses, that you genuinely care for others. You didn’t take them dress-shopping simply to throw away money, but because you wanted them to have something nice.”

To his surprise, Emery smiled at him. “Yes, that is exactly why I did it,” she said. She paused, and he was sure she was going to say more, but then she shook her head slightly and stood. “Very well, if that is all, I will bid you goodnight.”

At the door, she turned and looked back at him. “And if I were you, I’d change out of those wet clothes as soon as possible. It’s not good to get caught out in the rain, you know. You might catch a cold.”

And with a last wicked grin, she was gone.