Chapter Three #2
She tensed again at his use of the name of her childhood home. Indeed, he remembered. In fact, he remembered more things his new wife had told him over the course of their courtship than he’d even realized.
“Yes, at one time. Our collection was sold at auction.”
“Pity,” he said sincerely. “I have considered many a books a friend.”
Shadows of suspicion returned—a hint of a frown, a furrow in her brow. Clearly, she had no intention of making any overture on his part easy.
“Are you an enthusiast of the written word, too, then?” he pressed.
“I enjoy Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels,” she said with an edge of challenge.
“As do I…”
Her scowl deepened, but she leaned forward as if intrigued against her will.
“High in sentiment,” he continued. “Excellent entertainment for those of us who enjoy…how did you put it? Repeated indulgence of misery?”
As he cocked his head and smiled pleasantly, waiting for her response, her teacup rattled in her saucer.
She set down the china. “I really must beg your pardon.”
“You already apologized, remember? Besides, I don’t want your contrition; I simply want to understand why you’re angry with me.” He held his breath through a long silence.
“I wish I could explain,” she began tentatively, “but the truth is, I don’t know why I insulted you; I only know I should not have spoken in such a wounding manner.
” She averted her eyes, studying her hands as she folded her lovely, long, shaking fingers into one another and then held them tightly in her lap.
Did she fear him in addition to disliking him?
Impossible. If she had feared him, she wouldn’t have turned his library inside out.
“When one wishes to wound,” he asked softly, “what other manner should one use?”
She raised a conflicted gaze. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Don’t you?” He searched her face. “I think you do. I think you’re more than angry with me. You’re furious.”
She stiffened. “Am I to be allowed no privacy, even in my own mind?”
“Bravo. Much better.”
“Better? How?” she demanded.
“You raised your voice and lowered your tone. You were resolute. Honest.”
She shook her head no. “Don’t ask me to be honest.” She shrank back. “As I told you this morning, I don’t know myself right now. If I start speaking honestly, I may never be able to stop.”
“Better your hatred than your indifference.”
“I am not—” She stopped abruptly. She looked away. “I could never be indifferent to you.”
Well, not indifferent was, at least, a place to start.
“And I don’t hate you. I’m far from hating you.”
The softness in her voice, along with her sad and reluctantly given admission made his throat thicken. He wanted friendship. Possibly even passion. But, before now, he hadn’t pondered how he wanted her to feel about him.
But not indifferent had suddenly become insufficient.
“I’d like you to know I’m not angry about the library. However, you have upset someone else here at Harbury Hall. In fact, I believe you may have even inadvertently started a minor war.”
“A war?”
“I’ve never seen poor Mrs. Pratt in such a state.”
She worried her lip. “I am sorry.”
He grinned. “No, you aren’t.”
She chuckled softly, as if only to herself. “You’re right.” She matched his smile. “I’m not.”
“Did Mrs. Pratt say or do something to upset you?”
“Well”—she rearranged the angle of her cup—“when I asked about the hideous chandelier in the entry, she intimated the house must be kept exactly as your father wished.”
“The tent and bag chandelier?”
She nodded. “I took her insistence as disrespectful to you—”
He leaned forward.
“—I—I reacted badly.”
She’d reacted badly because she’d thought his housekeeper disrespected him?
After his father died, he had told his housekeeper he didn’t expect to make many changes.
At the time, however, he had anticipated he’d one day wed Viv, who’d always said she liked the Hall’s old-fashioned feel.
He hadn’t planned on bringing home a wife who had never been here.
A wife who might want to make changes of her own.
Changes, he realized, he did not oppose. Perhaps it was high time to clear out the proverbial cobwebs.
“So, you felt Mrs. Pratt had disrespected me, so you decided to tear up the library?”
“No! Not unless… Oh, bother!” She glanced up in consternation. “During my conversation with Mrs. Pratt, I did decide I would find something at Harbury Hall to change. I just didn’t connect that with my later decision to reorganize the library.”
He couldn’t help another smile. “Have I married a secret iconoclast?”
“I can see why you might think so.” Again, she laughed. “But I’ve only lately been inspired to rebel.”
“How lately?”
She closed one eye and winced sheepishly. “Since yesterday?”
Fascinating. He feared he’d inspired misery. Instead, he’d created a reluctant radical.
She must have noticed the light of understanding in his eyes because she dropped her gaze and took a disproportionately long sip of her tea.
“Since you’ve started a war, you are going to need an ally.” He placed his open palm between them and flashed his most charming smile. “I find myself in need of one as well.”
“What do you mean?”
“I plan to visit a few of our larger tenants. You might… I mean, if you are interested…”
He’d thought making conversation difficult, but asking for help—her help—was far worse.
“Are you asking me to accompany you?”
“I thought, well… As duchess, you might want to know the estate’s people. But only if you wish.”
Surprise lit her features, followed by something more. Interest, he hoped. Pleased interest.
“I would like to join you. Very much.”
He caught her gaze. And, for the first time all morning, neither of them looked away.
No. Not indifferent was definitely not going to be enough for him, especially not now. Not after he’d just experienced the rush that had accompanied her eager acceptance of his invitation.
*
Ally.
For some reason, the word made all the difference in the world. Cassie didn’t know Harbury, so they could not be friends. They’d made love, and yet, as she barely participated, she could not bring herself to call him her lover. Allies, however, was safe.
Allies was a start.
“Allies,” she repeated.
She glanced down at his open palm and then carefully intertwined her fingers with his. He closed his other hand tightly over both of theirs.
She’d taken his hand intending to seal their agreement, but he wasn’t holding hers as one would for a handshake. He was holding hers reverently as if he never wanted to let go.
He must truly desire me.
She both dreaded and yearned for his desire.
A few nights ago, Eliza had tried to tell her what to expect on her wedding night. Cassie hadn’t wanted to listen.
I don’t want to hear about a man’s ugly hands, Eliza.
Ugly? A man’s hands are fascinating, Cassie. Strong. Capable of creating experiences words could never express.
She’d thought Eliza mad. Now, she understood.
Harbury’s hands were sturdy. And, yes, strong. But they could also be, as now, surprisingly gentle. Calluses along his palm pressed into the base of her fingers. Unexpected roughness, especially on a duke’s hands.
Why hadn’t she noticed his roughened skin last night?
Because she’d been bracing against onslaught. Shutting herself off to feeling. She wanted him and that want had made her not only angry, but terrified of giving him all of herself while receiving only crumbs in return.
She’d thought she’d resigned herself to being a convenient wife, but his touch had rekindled a desire for the very thing she’d secretly wanted from the start—the whole of Harbury’s heart.
But no matter how persistent that want, she mustn’t forget her husband was in love with someone else.
Just like the prior night, he was drawing small circles against her knuckles with his thumb.
Was he conscious of the movement?
How was she supposed to remember to protect herself when his skin’s warmth was making her heart flutter and heat vine up her neck? How was she supposed to hold herself apart when her mind was conjuring images of other things those hands could cause her to feel?
Alarmed by the direction of her thoughts, she withdrew her hand.
“About the books,” she returned to a safer subject. “I’m not even a third of the way through the shelves Even so, I—I may have attempted too much at once. What do you think?”
His gaze fixed on his now-empty hand. He flexed his fingers.
“Harbury?” she prompted.
“Pardon?”
“The library?”
He blinked, still confused.
“My project, I’m afraid, will take longer than a day. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not,” he said, looking slightly bemused. “You didn’t expect to rearrange the entire Harbury collection in a single afternoon, did you?”
“I’m not sure I had a plan.”
“Well…”
He smiled in the way she found equally infuriating and enticing.
“I suppose all is fair in libraries and war.”
He was jesting with her. Then again, perhaps the library, the verbal sparring, even this tea, were all part of a larger negotiation. One that might, in the end, lead to something more than either of them had expected.
Dare she hope?
“While you were wreaking havoc on my books, did you discover anything interesting?”
“Our books,” she braved.
“Our.” His eyes glowed with approval.
Cassie grew breathless, as if the air had suddenly thinned. “Not much, yet.” She forced herself to concentrate. “Did you know your father published a treatise on grasses?”
His shoulders lifted slightly, probably even involuntarily, confirming his surprise. “Impressive.”
“Impractical, more like.”
He chuckled.
“I was rude again.” She winced. “I’m sorry.”
He made a thoughtful noise. “Most people held my father in awe. Rarely have I ever heard anyone even hint at the possibility he had any shortcomings.”
“Did you? Hold him in awe?”
His head jerked up, and his gaze fixed on a portrait of his father. “I respected him.” He frowned as if he hadn’t expected his lackluster answer. “Of course.”
“Of course?”
In her experience, there wasn’t any of course when it came to one’s esteem for one’s parents.
She’d given her own father deference but not always esteem. Her father had been a lauded Member of Parliament in public and a selfish brute in private. She’d never been able to reconcile his good qualities with his poor ones, which had far more effect on her and her sisters. As for her mother…
Unconsciously, she touched her locket.
She’d loved her mother, but she also understood things might have been very different for them all if her mother had learned to stand up for herself.
Instead, whenever her father had appeared, her mama, or at least the version of mama the Wainwright girls had known, had simply disappeared beneath a compliant, docile facade.
She would not repeat her mother’s marital mistakes, even if she did not quite know how to assert herself yet.
Oblivious to her thoughts, Harbury leaned forward and then rested his elbows on his knees.
“I’ve been duke for two years, now. Already, I’ve made mistakes. Mistakes”—he raised his brows—“he likely expected me to make. To be honest, I fear I will make more.”
Mistakes? She unclasped and then reclasped her hands. Was he referring to their marriage?
“What mistakes?” she managed to ask, though her voice came out too strained, too needful.
“Since the war, prices have been down. I’m afraid things may have become…difficult for the tenants, our tenants.” He glanced up. “As I said before, I’d like to consult with some of them. Get a better sense of what is happening on my own land than I can glean from columns of numbers.”
So, he hadn’t been referring to her as his mistake.
She spread her fingers and exhaled. She was just as relieved for herself as she was now concerned for the tenantry. “Let us plan our visits as soon as possible, then. We can decide how to proceed after we know more.”
His face lit. “We?”
She smiled. “Allies, remember?”
She’d always found him attractive, but when his eyes glowed, he was irresistible.
“We can fight two wars,” she added.
He frowned as if thinking. “I’m not sure I’d call indecision on how to proceed in certain aspects of estate management a separate war as much as another front.
The important thing now is to devise battle plans—terrain assessment, logistical considerations, possible deployments, artillery locations. ”
“You do know how to stretch a metaphor, don’t you?”
His smile turned cheeky, mischievous. “If we mean to plant our flag atop Harbury Hall, we need to proceed with stealth and intelligence.”
We. Our.
They’d been bandying about those terms all afternoon. Every time he said either word a tender place inside her expanded.
“You’d welcome my advice?” she asked.
He considered. “Actually, I believe I might be very much in need of your advice.”
The war for Harbury Hall appeared not to be the only one he intended to wage. He appeared to be launching a campaign, if not for her heart, at least for her friendship and affection.
Last night, when she’d ordered him from her room, she’d been protecting herself. Now, under the heat of his gaze, she understood protection was not what she truly wanted.
She wanted his attention, his desire.
He must have read something of the hope in her eyes because he drew back. Not fully apart, but enough to signal caution.
“While we figure out how to proceed, I think it best…” He looked down. His knee moved in a restless, repetitive fashion. “I’m trying to tell you I won’t come to your room tonight. Or again. Until invited.”
She frowned in confusion.
“You need your rest.” He paused. “Strength. For battle.”
She sucked in her bottom lip to keep herself from blurting out that she wanted him to come.
But though part of her did, another part of her agreed they should wait. This truce was too fragile. And whatever was happening between them, the energy felt too unpredictable.
Too dangerous.
There would be other nights. Many of them, hopefully.
“Thank you,” she forced.
“No, thank you”—he leaned forward—“for giving me another chance.”
She became aware of her lips, aware of his warm breath fanning her cheeks, aware of a full-bodied anticipation of his closeness. She closed her eyes. For one, mad moment she expected him to place his mouth against hers.
Instead of a true kiss, however, his lips simply brushed her forehead. But as he pulled back, and her eyes fluttered open, the look of longing on his face left her tingling all over.