Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Frederick led Alice into his box at the opera. After some internal debate, he’d fixed on the opera as a means of displaying their unity without allowing either of them to showcase their discord in public.
He had another reason, too.
The first time he’d ever encountered her father, it had been at the opera.
A mutual friend had introduced them, and although he had barely exchanged words with the man, they had spoken enough for Frederick to recognize the viscount’s love of the opera.
There was no guarantee, of course, that Alice would enjoy the opera as well, but he thought it might be a chance.
An opportunity for her to find a reason to live for herself, to find joy in something that didn’t involve ruining him.
She paused at the top of the stairs, one hand on the wall as she tried not to breathe too heavily.
Sweat beaded her brow, but under the watchful eyes of the ton, he knew she wouldn’t want to admit weakness.
Odd, how she could be so brazen in some ways, so determined to be coarse and unrefined in her attempt to prove herself unworthy of her new title, yet still refuse to allow people to pity her for her leg.
“Here,” he murmured, then wrapped an arm around her waist, taking most of her weight. She was so frail, so slender—but in a way that alarmed him. She weighed practically nothing in his arms.
She glanced up at him, but he had no time to see whether she was grateful, for they were finally at his box. He opened the door and ushered her inside. She took a seat at the front of the box, trailing her hands along the painted wood as she peered down at the stage.
“I haven’t been to the opera since I was a girl,” she said, and suddenly it was as though all the air had been sucked out of the space. There was plenty left unspoken there. She was referring to before—before he had taken her family from her.
There would never be a simple moment between them that didn’t eventually lead back to that.
“I suppose you want to sit beside me and pretend to the world as though we are happily married?” she asked of him.
“I would prefer that, yes.” He took the seat beside her, though made no attempt to get closer. “Do you enjoy music, Alice?”
“Should a husband not know that about his wife?”
“A husband who married under more traditional means, perhaps.”
“You mean a husband who actually courts his wife?” She snorted and turned back to the stage. In the pit, the orchestra was already taking their places. Most people still talked amongst themselves; the opera was not so much a place to appreciate music but a place to be seen.
“Well, then, let me court you now.” His voice lowered. “You know I have plenty of interest in getting to know you better.”
She slanted him a long, angry look. “For your own sake?”
“Excuse me?”
“I spoke to your aunt, Your Grace. She said it’s all very well you deciding to marry me, but you must also accept that I may not want to just forgive you and slide into the role as your doting wife—and you should give me the dignity to do just that, rather than putting yourself first.”
His mouth fell open. “You think I am doing all this for my sake?”
“Aren’t you?” Her eyes snapped, twin gunshots that delivered a fatal wound. “You married me so you could feel better about your actions. Now you want me to pretend to be your dutiful wife so that you can look better in the eyes of the ton. This is about you and your wants, not about me.”
“I have endured more disrespect from you than I would ever dream of enduring from anyone else,” he muttered back.
“Then you are a martyr, but you are still doing it on your own terms.”
She moved closer, and he felt pinned in place under the force of her gaze.
Warmth moved through his body at her defiance; he had to fight the urge to push her back in her chair and remind her who she was speaking to.
If he urged her in the right ways, she would yield.
She was a woman, and she held more passion than he suspected even she knew, especially if she responded to him in such a way.
But he did not do any of those things. Not because he was selfish, but because he knew she would not like it.
“Then what would you have me do?”
“You married me. Gave me status I would not otherwise have. Stability.” She considered. “You seem to want my health to improve. That can be the end of your role. That is all you need to do for my well-being. Anything further is for your own gain.”
He sucked in a breath, feeling as though his chest was too tight. “And I am to be satisfied with never living a life with my wife?”
She quite nearly rolled her eyes. “If you wanted that, you should have married for love.”
“Don’t be foolish.” He laughed again, though not out of good humor.
“You would never have permitted such a thing. There is no circumstance in which this did not happen. I tried to marry Lady Penelope to restore my social standing and good reputation—something my father would have wished me to do, if he had still been around.”
That had killed him in a whole new way, to know his father died thinking him a disappointment.
“You, presuming my happiness, rode to London in order to destroy it,” he continued. “If I had not chosen Lady Penelope but a lady whom I loved, you would have done the same thing. And we would be sitting here, wondering how to make our marriage work in the face of this stranger adversity.”
She slumped back in her chair, eyes wide, as though she understood the same thing he had. This was always the destiny that had awaited them. Once his carriage crashed into hers, this had always been their fate.
“You and I were always bound together,” he said, eyes on hers, the expression on her face blank with shock.
“No matter what else we did. You would have always hated me, and I would have always been eager to make reparations, and this would have been the end result. So now, where do we go from here?”
He reached out, unfastening a curl from where it had caught in her pins, letting it fall down her face.
His knuckle brushed her cheek, and although she shivered, she did not pull away.
Her eyes were magnetic in the candlelight.
“I want a wife, Alice. I married you to help you and protect you and be whatever you needed, but I also don’t want to lose the rest of my life to hatred. ”
She closed her eyes. “Do you expect me to just forgive you?”
“No. But I would hope that one day you can find it within yourself to want to. It is not a simple task, I know.” He let his hand drop away. “Through me, or just through this life, I want you to find something worth living for.”
He didn’t expect that something to be him. That would be too much to ask for. But one day, he did hope that she would find it within herself to want them to share a life worth living.
He would settle for that.
“The music is starting,” he murmured before nodding to the stage. “Let us put aside our differences for now.”
“You enjoy the opera?” She spoke scathingly, as though she could imagine nothing less likely.
“Yes. I used to come here with my father also.”
She twitched, half turning toward him, her face gilded in light and bathed in shadow at once, until she appeared like something out of a fairytale—a creature from another world, almost frightening in her beauty, and so…
so remote. He could almost sense her desire to ask more, about his relationship with his father, perhaps, or to needle his assertion he enjoyed music so she could disprove it, but as the violinists brought their bows across the strings in a shimmer of sound, she turned back to the stage.
Frederick spent more of the first half watching her than he did watching the performance. It was Fidelio by Beethoven, and he had seen it plenty of times. He suspected she had, too, but he still saw her eyes widen with wonder, then gloss with tears as the curtain came down for the intermission.
So, music touched her, did it? He hoped to find something else that would.
Before he could take her in search of refreshments, the door opened and Denshire walked in, along with his sister, whom he was accompanying to the opera.
“Langford!” he howled in greeting. “Thought I should introduce my sister to your wife.” He made a small bow in Alice’s direction. “She’s new to Town and the more friends she has here, the better.”
Frederick stood and welcomed them both into the box. “Of course. Alice, meet Helena. I hope you both can become friends.”
Alice had initially been expecting to dislike whichever person the Duke flung at her as a ‘friend’.
And when the lady in question was the sister of the Duke’s personal friend, she felt a flash of irritation.
But when Lady Helena sat beside her, Alice found that the girl was not someone designed to act as a spokesperson for the Duke.
If anything, the girl was rather reticent.
She was pretty, Alice ascertained immediately. Soft, dark hair that clustered around her face in pretty curls, and warm brown eyes that matched those of her brother, the Earl of Denshire. She had a sweet Cupid-bow mouth, and looked as though a strong wind might blow her confidence away with it.
This was not a lady designed to bring her around to her marriage.
Could she really be designed as a friend?
Alice didn’t have it in her to be cruel to someone who looked at her with such unabashed admiration.
“Hullo,” Helena whispered. “I am Helena Everston.”
“Alice—” She hesitated for a second, but it was her name, so she might as well own it. “Alice Blackwell. But you may call me Alice. Evidently, the Duke would prefer it if we were friends.”
“And my brother.” Helena flushed as though she had said something deeply inaccurate, though from what Alice could see, she had said nothing but the truth. “I am a bit of a trial for him, I’m afraid.”