Chapter 1
“Now that the deed is done, I shall be leaving,” the Duke of Rosewood looked her up and down and nodded with businesslike approval.
Diana did not at first understand what he meant. She stood perfectly still in the center of the grand entrance hall of her new husband’s London townhouse, unable to make even the smallest movement.
She was still gloved, still wrapped in ivory silk and pearls, still carrying the warmth of congratulations and clinking glasses from the wedding breakfast that had concluded scarcely half an hour ago.
The air in the hall felt insufficient. She drew a deep breath, yet it did not satisfy.
“I beg your pardon?” she asked evenly, though the steadiness cost her.
The words scraped at the back of her throat. Her pulse began to pound in a sharp, insistent rhythm that made her voice feel thinner than she intended. She could feel her heartbeat distinctly beneath the pearls resting against her collarbone, each thud pushing faintly against her skin.
The Duke stood before her in dark tailoring that fit him too well. The coat followed the breadth of his shoulders, shaping itself to strength that seemed carved. The wool stretched smooth across his chest, unmoved by tension or doubt. She found herself watching the slow rise and fall of that chest.
It was unfair how composed he looked.
The pale afternoon sunlight traced the hard line of his jaw and caught faintly in his emerald eyes when he finally lifted them to her. When those eyes settled on her, her body reacted before her pride could intervene. Heat moved low and immediately through her abdomen, startling in its intensity.
“I married you,” he said finally, folding the gloves neatly into his palm. “The obligation has been fulfilled. You will remain here. I shall not.”
The statement struck her so abruptly that her lungs faltered mid-inhalation.
The faint crease between his brows deepened.
“Not… remain here?” she asked, and the question felt misshapen in her mouth, a clumsy thing that didn’t belong between them.
She swallowed, the lingering sweetness of champagne turning to ash on her tongue.
“Yes. I am leaving,” he said, and his words were a flat, dead thing.
Diana felt the sudden, cruel weight of her finery, her bodice suddenly becoming too tight, the pearls at her collar tightening with every thud.
For a fleeting, disorienting second, she was no longer in the hall but standing smaller, younger, listening to the same tone of dismissal, the same cold certainty that she was to be left behind and expected to endure it without complaint.
She braced her knees until they ached, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her sway.
“Tonight?” she whispered, trying to hide the plea between her words, the fear of what a life as a deserted wife would be.
“Yes.”
“On our wedding day?”
“Yes.”
Each response arrived with the same terrifying lack of vibration. No heat. No regret. Just a decision made in a room she hadn’t been invited to enter.
If he had flayed her with an accusation—if he had burned with the fire of a man wronged—she could have found her footing in the heat. But this was ice cold.
The rustle of her skirts as she shifted sounded like a roar in the vacuum of his silence. She stayed pinned under his gaze, shivering from the sudden, absolute realization that she was entirely alone in the room.
“You cannot be serious,” she said, stepping toward him before she had consciously decided to move.
The movement sent a rush of warmth through her limbs.
The closer she came, the more acutely she felt him, and the contained strength in his stance, the faint scent of clean linen and something darker beneath it, something distinctly masculine that reached her before she could steel herself against it.
“We have been married scarcely an hour.”
“And that hour suffices,” he responded.
Diana had prepared herself for many things when she agreed to this marriage. She had prepared for distance, for formality, for a husband not inclined toward romance. The Duke of Rosewood was known to be reserved, to keep to himself, known to avoid society except when absolutely necessary.
She had not expected abandonment.
“You will live comfortably,” the Duke continued, his voice as smooth and cool as the marble pillars surrounding them. “A generous allowance, the freedom to entertain, to travel, to do exactly as you wish. You will not be troubled by me in the slightest, Duchess.”
The humiliation was a needle, thin and white-hot, stitching itself directly beneath her ribs.
“Why?” The word was small, a jagged piece of glass in her throat. “Why are you doing this?”
The Duke didn’t flinch. He didn’t even have the decency to look regretful. “I never intended for us to have a domestic life,” he said, his tone as casual as if he were discussing the weather at Tattersalls. “I made that point quite clear to your uncle during our negotiations.”
His words made her stomach turn.
“You stood before the altar,” she whispered, her gaze dropping to the gold band that felt like a leaden weight on her finger. “You looked me in the eye and made vows. You placed this ring upon my hand.”
“And in doing so, I fulfilled the necessary condition of the contract.”
Diana’s breath hitched, caught in the sudden tightness of her lungs. She looked up, her eyes frantically searching his face for a crack, a twitch of a muscle, a softening of the mouth, any sign that this was a cruel, grotesque jest.
But the Duke’s features were composed into a mask of chilling impassivity. His piercing green eyes were now flat, reflecting the sunlight but holding none of it.
“And what, precisely, am I to say when society inquires after my absent husband?” Diana asked. Her voice felt thin, almost trembling. “When the whispers begin behind the fans?”
“Tell them I travel frequently,” he said, his voice smooth and untroubled. “Tell them my interests lie in business instead of society. It is a common enough tale in London; they will tire of the gossip within a fortnight.”
“Where will you go, Your Grace?” She took a step toward him, her skirts hissing against the floor. “If I am to be your wife in name, I should at least know which direction to point my gaze when I wonder where you are.”
He turned then, and for a fleeting second, she looked for a spark of guilt in the depths of his eyes, but found only a chilling boredom.
“Rosewood Hall. My country residence. If you need to contact me, you can send a letter there,” he explained.
The words were a shutter closing.
It should not have hurt like this. She hadn’t entered this union with a heart full of poetry or dreams. She was a practical woman, and she had married for the cold, hard weight of a title and the safety of a jointure.
It wasn’t the distance that was breaking her; it was the realization that to him, she wasn’t even to be considered. She was a line item in a ledger that had been met, filed away, already forgotten.
“So that’s it, then. You mean to leave me here alone,” she said slowly.
“You will not be alone,” Alexander said, his voice thin and clinical. “There are servants. A full staff at your disposal.”
The sheer dismissiveness of it made Diana’s vision snap into sharp, burning focus. Before her pride could catch her, she crossed the distance between them.
She reached out and seized his hand.
Through the thin lace of her glove, she felt the heat of his skin. He wasn’t a ghost or a contract; he was a man. He was her husband.
“Is that truly all?” she demanded, her voice vibrating with a sudden, raw edge. “You marry me, you deliver me to this house like a piece of freight, and you depart without so much as an explanation?”
The Duke stilled. Then, he lowered his eyes to her hand.
His free hand shot out, his fingers closing around her wrist. The pressure of his thumb against her pulse point sent a jolt through her entire frame, a sickeningly sweet heat that made her knees feel hollow.
“You will do as you please, Diana,” he said, his voice dropping an octave as he pulled his hand free from her grip. “Throw your gatherings. Spend my money. Take a lover, if you require it. I shall not interfere.”
The word lover made her wince.
“You insult me,” she whispered, her face ashen.
“I offer you freedom.”
Diana hated him in that moment. She hated his strength, his scent, and the way her body—despite the shame, despite the rejection—ached to lean into the very man who was discarding her.
Hated that beneath the humiliation and the shock, there remained a steady, unmistakable thread of desire.
“You presume,” she said more quietly now, “that I would seek another man.”
Alexander dragged a hand slowly through his sandy blond hair, disturbing its careful order before letting his arm fall again. “I presume nothing.”
“You gave me permission.”
His green eyes held hers with unsettling steadiness beneath the shadow of his beard.
“I gave you freedom,” he declared, his broad shoulders shifting slightly beneath his dark coat, the movement utterly controlled.
That is worse.
Her heart pounded. She felt suddenly reckless, suddenly unwilling to be dismissed like a parcel delivered.
Silence settled between them, heavy and charged.
For a brief, dangerous moment, she imagined rising onto her toes and pressing her mouth to his, if only to see whether he would remain composed then. She imagined his restraint breaking, his hand sliding from her wrist to her waist, his mouth no longer indifferent but claiming.
The thought made her breath hitch.
He noticed, and his eyes dropped briefly to her mouth, before returning to her face with their cold assessment.
“I will ensure,” he said evenly, stepping back, “that we need not inconvenience one another from this moment forward.”
He turned then and walked toward the door with a composed stride.
Diana remained where she stood, every nerve alive with humiliation, anger, and the unbidden, persistent awareness of the warmth his hand had left on her skin. The door opened, and cool air spilled into the hall.
Without turning, he said, “The steward has instructions regarding your allowance.”
And then he stepped outside, and the door closed. The echo reverberated through the silent house.
Diana remained standing in the entrance hall of her husband’s townhouse, still in her wedding gown, still wearing his ring, her wrist tingling where he had held her, her heart pounding with a confusion so sharp it bordered on disbelief.
What kind of man walks away from his bride before the marriage has even begun?
And why, despite everything, did the memory of his hand around her wrist burn hotter than the insult?