Chapter 13
“So let me get this straight,” Phoebe said. “Not only did you kick out our guests—in the rudest possible terms, I might add—but you orchestrated this whole thing without even telling your sister?”
“I do not understand why you’re so cross about this,” Aaron replied, resisting the urge to rub his temples. “I did my duty. Ceremony. Breakfast. And my sister is in Belgium.”
Phoebe smacked her forehead. “Right. My mistake. There isn’t any post in Belgium.”
Aaron frowned. “Do you know that you are the second person to say that to me? Why is everyone so convinced that something being accessible via a post route means that you ought to send every little thing halfway around the world?”
He heard the words as soon as he said them and recognized his mistake immediately. Still, he didn’t let the realization show on his face. This was something he had learned as a commander: never reveal your mistakes just in case the enemy didn’t notice them.
But Phoebe was a great deal cannier than nearly any of the men who had ever served under Aaron’s command.
Her eyes narrowed.
“As gratified as I am that you consider our marriage to be a mere little thing,” she said, “please allow me to remind you that life it not only about duty. The events of the morning—they were not some mere list of items that you could check off and count as done. Those guests? They were our family, our friends, and you treated them abominably.”
“I treated them as I would anyone else,” he countered. This was not what he had wanted when he’d sent everyone away from his home. He’d wanted time alone with his wife, yes, but not so she could yell at him.
“Yes,” she said, like she was explaining something to a particularly dim child. “That’s the problem. They are not just anyone. They are the people who deserve our kindness, our attention. You know.” She paused meaningfully. “Friends.”
She said it so meaningfully, but Aaron already had a friend. And he’d thrown Jacob out plenty of times.
“That sounds,” he said peevishly, “like the reason I have a duchess.”
Phoebe’s expression went very, very flat at that.
“Right,” she said. “So, you have your duties, and I’ll tend to mine?”
His stubbornness kicked in. There were two paths before him; he saw them clearly enough. He could apologize, walk things back, try again.
But retreating wasn’t in his nature. He had told her as much that very first day, hadn’t he?
So, he took the other path. The one he always took. He stood his ground.
“Just so,” he said—levelly, like he’d never so much as considered going another way.
She heaved a slow, long breath.
“I understand,” she said. She offered him nothing. Her eyes revealed nothing.
And then she turned on her heel and left.
Phoebe didn’t go down to dinner.
This was a blatant violation of the bargain that she and Aaron had made in the gazebo, but he had certainly violated the spirit of the bargain when he had kicked everyone out of their wedding breakfast. He knew she cared about her family.
The whole reason she’d done this was because she cared about her family.
And to hear that he hadn’t even mentioned their wedding to his sister?
Well, that stung. It made her feel… cheap.
It reminded her that she’d bargained herself away to him.
It didn’t matter that she’d bargained herself directly into luxury.
The duchess’s rooms were beautiful, appointed with all the finest things.
The bed—which Phoebe threw herself upon with a fit of melodramatic pique—was soft as a cloud.
The rest of the house was as sparsely decorated as his country house had been, but this room was sumptuously decorated.
It was delightful. Warm. Lovely.
She punched the pillows until she was tired.
And then she waited. She waited for her refusal to appear at dinner to anger him. Then, when that failed, she waited for him to come to exercise his… marital duties.
He was so focused on duty after all. Oughtn’t he care about that?
But he didn’t. She waited and waited, and he never came.
And so, when she fell asleep, it was with an empty sort of feeling in her chest.