Chapter 2
The devil had a face, and it was sinfully handsome.
He also had a name, and it was Everett Winthrop Saunders, Duke of Riverdale.
And now, that same devil expected Sybil to share his bed until she bore him a son.
It wasn’t going to happen. She would sooner pitch herself from the roof of Wingfield Hall to the unforgiving ground below.
She would sooner return to her father’s tyrannical rule at Eastlake Hall.
She would endure his rages and raised hands any day over submitting herself to a husband who would never love her.
Liar, taunted a small voice.
One she promptly smothered like the flame of an unwanted candle.
The initial round of their battle that morning had ended in a stalemate and Sybil’s retreat.
But she refused to allow him to wallow in the mistaken belief that he had emerged the victor.
Which was why she was currently winding down a narrow stone staircase into the belly of the Wingfield Hall grotto in search of the same devil who had so boldly made demands of her.
Heaven knew he had been leading her on a merry enough chase ever since she had enjoyed the thorough satisfaction of dumping a pitcher of water over his head.
There had been no sign of him at breakfast, nor had he taken tea.
It had required no small amount of questioning domestics to determine where His Grace had gone.
Then to find where the clandestine grotto itself was located on the estate.
But at last, here she was. As Sybil reached the bottom stair, however, she instantly realized that finding the grotto hadn’t been the problem. It was what awaited her within the grotto that was the true predicament.
Specifically, who awaited her within the grotto and what he was wearing. Or rather, what he wasn’t wearing.
Not a blessed stitch.
Because the Duke of Riverdale was nude.
Curse the man.
He was gliding through the water as if he were a fish born of the sea, his bare arms and muscled shoulders plowing through the pool in effortless, graceful motion.
His back was bare. So too was his arse, which glistened in the flowing lights illuminating the cavern as he dove beneath the water to swim below the surface.
Heat scalded Sybil’s cheeks.
She knew she ought to look away from the spectacle, and yet, she couldn’t. He was a blur of motion, and then he burst forth, water dripping down him in glistening rivulets. He raked the dark strands of his hair from his face, his gaze settling on her.
As when she had confronted him in his bedchamber, Riverdale made no attempt at modesty, no effort to shield himself.
He simply lifted himself from the water, his muscles rippling in a delightful display of masculine strength, and then settled his bare rump on the smooth stone surrounding the glimmering pool.
At least he had moved quickly enough that the glimpse of a certain portion of his anatomy had been hasty and indistinct.
It occurred to her that he was staring at her expectantly, waiting for her to speak.
Sybil found her voice. “Your Grace. You are shameless.”
“As are you, madam wife. You presume a great deal in interrupting my solitude and possessing the sheer daring to demand a divorce.”
Her plan—which had seemed so bold and infallible when she had first conceived of it at Riverdale Abbey, where she had been left like a forgotten boot—had unraveled with alarming haste.
Largely because she had discovered she hadn’t the heart to conduct a meaningless affaire with the first agreeable gentleman she came upon.
Unlike her husband, who could apparently bed anyone without conscience.
That last thought set her teeth on edge and stiffened her spine with the reminder that she must not allow herself to be cowed by him. She kept her gaze carefully trained upon his and nowhere else.
“Surely no more presumption than in your suggestion that I endlessly warm your bed until you have what you want from me.”
His eyes remained cold and impervious as he combed fingers through his wet hair. “I don’t recall using the word endless.”
Her hands clenched in her gown at her sides. “The implication is the same. I have no notion if I’m able to bear a child at all, let alone a male child. These matters require time. A great deal of time. To say nothing of the distasteful nature of suffering the marriage bed.”
He raised a brow, his expression insufferably smug. “I can assure you there would be nothing at all distasteful about sharing my bed.”
Something warm unfurled deep within her. Something unwanted. A feeling that she had thought she had banished during his abandonment and absence.
Apparently, Sybil had been wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time, nor would it, she suspected, be the last where her husband was concerned.
“We shall have to disagree on that particular subject, I’m afraid.”
He shrugged. “I would only be exercising my husbandly rights. Rights which you have thus far denied me.”
That set her teeth on edge. “How could I have denied you when you abandoned me?”
“Forgive me, madam. I had no notion that attending to my many ducal responsibilities would be deemed abandonment.”
Resentment swirled through her yet again over the pain Riverdale’s cutting departure and abrupt absence had caused her. “You left me on our wedding day. You didn’t even have the courtesy to tell me yourself.”
“I left you a letter.”
She had been shocked to receive the concise, neatly penned explanation that he had pressing matters that called him away, delivered to her by the housekeeper.
No indication of when he would return. No goodbye.
He had married her and then walked away from her in the same day.
She still couldn’t understand it, nor could she reconcile the cutting, cold stranger confronting her now with the charming, witty suitor who had so swiftly courted her at Eastlake Hall.
The man who had stolen her heart with such ease.
“You left me a letter, yes,” she conceded. “But no indication that you would indefinitely leave me whilst you carried on as if you were a bachelor. Did you think that word of your flirtations and conquests would not reach me?”
Scandal had come to her at Riverdale Abbey, where she had awaited his return.
In newspapers where sly articles hinted at the roguish behavior of the Duke of R.
In letters, Alice had written as gently as possible that Sybil’s husband had continued on with his life as if he’d never married at all.
To all the world, he had remained a bachelor.
Meanwhile, Sybil had been left to navigate the complexities of Riverdale Abbey on her own for months, all her own letters to him going unanswered.
She had been forgotten.
He gave her a thin smile. “Gossip abounds, madam. One cannot concern oneself with the vagaries of common fame.”
His callousness reopened the wounds she had been determined to heal.
“It would almost seem that you delight in the notion of word reaching me in the countryside.”
He gave her an indolent shrug. “I wouldn’t say I thought about you at all, my dear.”
The bitter sarcasm lacing his voice held all the pent-up fury of a slap.
She clutched her skirts harder, her knuckles aching beneath the strain. “It is a wonder, Your Grace, that you would even deign to touch me, considering you hold me in such unenviably low regard.”
“I don’t hold you in any regard at all. Tell me, why did you interrupt my swimming? I’ve grown bored of this tired argument.”
His words shouldn’t sting. He shouldn’t have the power to hurt her. And yet, Sybil couldn’t keep from being affected by his icy indifference.
“Because I want you to reconsider.”
“That isn’t going to happen.”
His stubborn, impassive insistence was maddening. He wasn’t even contemplating her argument.
“Why not?”
“Because as I said, I have neither the time nor the inclination to court another bride. I’ve done that folderol already, and I’m not about to endure it all a second time.”
“I don’t want to be married to you,” she bit out. “Does that not signify?”
He laughed, the sound bitter. “Of course it doesn’t, madam. The matter is decidedly settled, is it not?”
Sybil longed to shout with fury. Why did he insist upon being so stubborn and unfeeling?
Could he not see what a misery they made together?
How had she ever hoped that theirs could one day turn into a love match?
Moreover, how had she ever believed herself in love with him?
She ought to have known happiness was impossible, having watched her own mother’s plight.
Having watched Henry pay the price for his mother’s and father’s sins.
Clearly, she had been a fool of the worst sort.
But she would rectify her na?veté. Riverdale had dashed it to bits and shown her the truth of the world.
There was neither hope nor love. There was only escape if one wanted happiness.
And she wanted it. Happiness had been close enough so fleetingly that she had once tasted it.
Sybil would be damned if she would fall into the same prison in which her mother had become inextricably trapped.
“No,” she insisted now, “it’s not.”
He yawned. “Again, if you don’t mind, madam, this conversation grows tedious, and I’m getting cold.”
Without awaiting her response, he slid back into the water with an undignified splash. He remained beneath the surface for so long that she found herself moving nearer to the edge of the pool, fearing he had somehow hit his head or done himself other injury.
But the flurry of movement beneath the surface quickly proved her wrong. He was swimming under the water again. Ignoring her. Unmoved by her every argument and plea.
Fine.
If he intended to continue swimming as if she weren’t standing here attempting to have a polite, reasonable discourse with him regarding the state of their marriage, then she would simply wait for him to finish.
Damn the woman.