Married to a Frozen Duke (Inconvenient Marriages #4)

Chapter One

The seventh Duke of Montclaire was dying magnificently.

It was, Alexander thought with the sort of detached appreciation one might reserve for a particularly dramatic opera, exactly the sort of death scene his grandfather would orchestrate.

The massive bedchamber had been transformed into a theater of finality—heavy curtains drawn against the cheerful spring sunshine, fire burning low in the grate, the air thick with that peculiar stillness that preceded momentous occasions.

The duke himself lay propped against a fortress of pillows, his face bearing the waxy sheen of a man whose business with this world was drawing to its inevitable close.

Yet his eyes, those infamous grey eyes that had made lesser men quake in parliamentary sessions, still glittered with their characteristic command.

Alexander stood at a precise distance from the bed, neither too close to suggest unseemly emotion nor too far to imply disrespect.

At two and thirty, he had mastered the art of appearing precisely as engaged as any situation required and not one degree more.

His morning coat was impeccable black, his cravat a study in architectural precision, his expression carefully neutral.

Around him, the family had assembled like a flock of well-dressed carrion birds.

Cousin Margret clutched her handkerchief with anticipatory grief.

Uncle Bartholomew consulted his pocket watch with the dedication of a man who believed punctuality might somehow postpone the inevitable.

Great-Aunt Wilhelmina sat straight in the corner, her disapproval of death's timing evident in every line of her ancient face.

Mr. Hedgley, the family solicitor, hovered near the writing desk, his implements of legal documentation arranged with military precision. He had the look of a man who had witnessed many deathbed proclamations and found them all equally uncomfortable.

The duke's breathing rattled like dice in a cup; appropriate, Alexander supposed, given how much of the family fortune Uncle Charles had once gambled away.

"Come closer, all of you," the duke commanded, his voice thin as parchment but still capable of commanding obedience. "What I have to say concerns every Montclaire living and those yet unborn."

The assembled relatives shuffled forward with the reluctance of students approaching a particularly stern headmaster.

The duke's gaze swept over them all before settling on Alexander with uncomfortable intensity. "Too long," he began, each word requiring visible effort, "have Montclaire and Coleridge lived at daggers drawn."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees.

Alexander's expression didn't change, but something in his stillness became more pronounced. The very name Coleridge was enough to resurrect every slight, every insult, every carefully documented grievance that had been passed down through the generations like a particularly bitter heirloom.

"Let them be united," the duke continued, his words falling like stones into still water, "that quarrels may at last give way to peace."

Mr. Hedgley bent low over his parchment, quill poised to capture every syllable for posterity. The scratching sound it made seemed unnaturally loud in the hushed chamber.

Alexander's composure finally cracked. A sound escaped him; not quite a laugh, but certainly nothing approaching appropriate deathbed behavior. "Coleridge?" The word emerged like something particularly vile. "Why would you squander your last words upon that wretched brood?"

Those damned Coleridge brothers. The thought burned through his mind like acid.

He could picture them perfectly—all four of them, strutting about town like peacocks, their new money practically reeking from their gaudy watch chains.

The eldest, always trying to buy his way into White's.

The second, who'd had the audacity to outbid him at Tattersall's.

The twins, with their vulgar laughter and their counting-house manners, contaminating every respectable gathering they managed to infiltrate.

Cousin Margret gasped. Uncle Bartholomew dropped his watch. Great-Aunt Wilhelmina's expression suggested she was reconsidering the distribution of her own eventual estate.

"Your Grace!" Uncle Bartholomew sputtered. "Your grandfather is..."

"Dying, yes." Alexander's tone was desert-dry. "Which makes his sudden interest in our trade-soaked neighbours all the more bewildering."

The Duke's eyes flashed with something that might have been amusement or might have been fury—with him, one could never quite tell. "Mr. Hedgley," he commanded, ignoring his heir's irreverence with magnificent disdain, "record this exactly as I speak it."

The solicitor dipped his quill with the gravity of a man signing a treaty.

"My heir, and that is Alexander, since his father has died," the duke pronounced with devastating clarity, "shall take to wife Miss Coleridge within one year of my decease, or the Montclaire estate shall pass into trusteeship until such time as the condition is met."

The quill scratched across parchment like fate itself being written.

Alexander stood perfectly still, but inside, his mind reeled with horrified disbelief.

Miss Coleridge. He searched his memory and came up startlingly empty.

In all his years of carefully catalogued grievances against that family, he couldn't conjure a single image of their sister.

The brothers dominated every social gathering like a plague of locusts in expensive tailcoats, but a sister?

She must exist; the old man wouldn't stake the estate on a phantom.

But the fact that she'd never registered in his consciousness spoke volumes.

Probably kept hidden away, he reasoned, too plain or too simple to parade about.

Or worse—exactly like her brothers, all sharp elbows and sharper tongues, calculating the value of every introduction, every dance, every social connection like entries in a ledger.

"You cannot be serious," he said at last, his voice carefully modulated while his thoughts raged. A Coleridge bride. In my home. At my table. In my bed. The very idea made his skin crawl.

"When have I ever been otherwise?" The Duke's breath was coming harder now, each word a victory against his failing body. "The feud dies with me, Alexander. You will see to it."

"By binding myself to some insipid girl, bred in trade and stinking of ledgers and ambition?" The words came out sharper than intended. "No doubt she's been trained from the cradle to calculate dowries and settlements. Probably keeps accounts of eligible bachelors ranked by annual income."

"By doing your duty to this family." The Duke's voice gained strength through sheer force of will. "Miss Coleridge is of age, unwed, and of good reputation. That is all that need concern you."

Good reputation. Alexander nearly snorted.

What constituted good reputation in the Coleridge household?

The ability to tally accounts without using one's fingers?

Not being caught sampling the merchandise?

He pictured some creature raised in trade, with grasping hands and calculating eyes, probably dressed in whatever gaudy fashion her brothers deemed expensive enough to broadcast their ill-gotten wealth.

"Swear it, Your Grace. Here, before witnesses. Swear it now."

The formal address from his grandfather's lips carried weight because it was a reminder that with or without the oath, Alexander would soon hold the title and all its responsibilities.

The two men regarded each other across the expanse of decades of carefully cultivated enmity.

Alexander's jaw clenched so tightly he could hear his teeth grind.

Every fiber of his being revolted against the idea.

The Coleridge men were everything he despised—coin-heavy merchants playing at being gentlemen, their very existence an insult to centuries of proper breeding.

And now he was to take their sister...this Miss Coleridge, to wife?

This unknown girl who was doubtless cut from the same coarse cloth?

He thought of their last encounter at the Jennings ball—the eldest Coleridge brother practically inventorying the silver, the younger ones laughing with the subtlety of street vendors.

Miss Coleridge, wherever she'd been secreted away, was certainly no different.

Probably worse, trained to be cunning where they were merely crude.

"Very well." He inclined his head with the minimum degree required for family respect. "It shall be done."

The words tasted of ashes and betrayal.

The Duke studied him with those penetrating eyes, as if he could read the rebellion already forming in his heir's mind. "You will treat her with the respect due to your duchess."

Respect. The thought was laughable. Respect for a Coleridge?

"Naturally, Grandfather. I shall treat Miss Coleridge exactly as she deserves."

Something that might have been concern flickered across the Duke's face. "Alexander!"

"I have given my word," Alexander cut him off, his voice like winter ice. "Miss Coleridge shall be my bride within the year. Though I confess I cannot even recall laying eyes upon the girl. Has she ever been presented? Or do they keep her locked away with their ledger books?"

The Duke's breathing grew more labored. "You... you have much to learn about... about seeing clearly..."

His eyes began to close, but he forced them open once more, fixing Alexander with a final, penetrating stare. "Remember... your oath..."

The seventh Duke of Montclaire drew one last, shuddering breath, and then breathed no more.

For a moment, the room held perfect stillness.

Then Cousin Margret released a wail that suggested she'd been practicing.

Uncle Bartholomew fumbled for his watch as if time might somehow reverse itself.

Great-Aunt Wilhelmina sniffed decisively and muttered something about the inconvenience of deaths in spring.

Mr. Hedgley began the solemn business of sealing the will with the efficiency of a man who had more pressing appointments.

Alexander, now the eighth Duke of Montclaire in all but formal recognition, stood motionless, staring at the document that would either unite two families or destroy them both in the attempt.

Miss Coleridge.

His mind churned with bitter speculation.

What would she be like, this sister who'd been kept so carefully from view?

Probably ugly and loud, with her brothers' merchant manners and their grasping ambition.

Or perhaps sly and scheming, trained to entrap a titled husband with whatever feminine wiles her mother had managed to purchase from some displaced governess.

The thought of those Coleridge brothers gloating, slapping each other's backs in their vulgar way, celebrating their sister's elevation—his forced elevation of her—made his stomach turn.

They'd probably smoke their cheap cigars in every gentleman's club that would still admit them, boasting about their newfound connection to the Montclaire name.

If peace must come, it shall be on my terms, he vowed silently. And Heaven help Miss Coleridge when she discovers what it means to be my duchess. She'll learn her place quickly enough; silent, obedient, and as invisible as she's apparently been all these years.

He turned on his heel with military precision and strode toward the door.

"Your Grace," Mr. Hedgley called after him, using the address that was not yet formally his but soon would be. "Shall I send word to the Coleridge family of the late duke's requirements?"

Alexander paused at the threshold. "No need, Mr. Hedgley.

News of this particular catastrophe will travel faster than gossip at Almack's.

" His smile was sharp as winter frost. "I suspect we shall hear their response from here.

The Coleridge brothers have never been accused of either subtlety or silence.

They'll probably celebrate with champagne they can't properly pronounce. "

As he swept from the room, leaving death and duty in his wake, one final thought occupied his mind: Miss Coleridge is a complete cipher.

But blood tells, as Grandfather always said.

And Coleridge blood runs thick with everything I despise—the stench of trade, the grasping for status, the vulgar display of new money.

He had a year to claim his bride...though what choice was there, really? One Miss Coleridge, undoubtedly as common as her brothers, soon to bear the Montclaire name.

The very thought made him want to break something expensive, preferably something the Coleridgees had touched.