Chapter 11
“Ridiculous,” Elara muttered, staring up at the domed ceiling of her bedroom.
Mrs. York had kept her promise to help redecorate what Elara had playfully called her ‘sunspot room’.
It had only been two days, yet the bright yellow and orange walls and furnishings had already been replaced with hues of blue, purple, and hints of silver.
It was gorgeous, and the new coverings for her bed were breathtakingly soft and lovely.
Yet for the second night in a row, Elara could not sleep.
“How ridiculous!” she muttered again, then flung the covers off. With a huff, she got out of bed and went to the window, giving up on sleep. She pulled back her new dark blue curtains and looked out at London’s night sky, wondering why she had ever taken her mother’s advice.
What was I even thinking?
The shame of being turned down by her husband had been brutal, but it was the way he had told her to leave that confounded her most. He had looked at her with hunger—she was sure of it!
Yet when he dismissed her, it was as if she had been the vilest thing he had ever seen.
She did not understand the blasted man at all!
He is so insufferable, so indecent! And just when I thought I could not hate him more...
Tsking her tongue at the thought, Elara grabbed her robe—her favorite violet-purple silk one meant for her pleasure and no one else’s—and drew it around her ice-blue night shift.
Quietly, she opened her bedroom door and, for a moment, simply stood and looked out into the corridor.
When she was sure no servants were around to see her, Elara made her way downstairs.
She had refused to leave her rooms for the past two days and had taken all her meals there.
She left the vast house through one of the back sets of French doors and drew in a deep, calming breath of the warm night air as she stepped outside.
The scent of roses, lilies, hyacinths, and other flowers in the garden soothed her thoughts, and Elara dared a small smile as she made her way down the stone steps toward the flowers.
As she walked through the garden, Elara occasionally traced her fingers along the petals of the flowers; her thoughts shifted between how soft they were and how lucky flowers were to never feel embarrassment.
“You truly are lucky, you know,” she murmured softly, tracing her fingertips around the petals of a particularly large white rose. “It must be so nice not to have to worry about shame.”
She sighed and gently plucked a petal from the rose.
“I am never taking my mother’s advice again,” she whispered, rubbing the petal back and forth across her palm.
“Do you always tell the flowers your problems?”
Elara yelped and jumped as she heard the Duke’s deep voice cut through the still night air.
She turned quickly and found him standing a few feet away, his arms folded across the loose fit of a white nightshirt.
In the dim light, she could see he had a smirk on his lips, and one of his brows was arched as if he were greatly amused by what he caught her doing.
“I... So what if I do?” she retorted, raising her chin defiantly. “It is not as if I have to suffer their rejection.”
He chortled and let his hands fall to his sides as he stepped closer.
“I have offended you,” he stated.
“I would have to care about your opinion to be offended by you, Your Grace,” she answered testily, turning her back to him.
“So you do not care for my opinion at all?” he asked.
“Not a bit,” she retorted, shrugging one shoulder and tossing her hair back with attitude.
“I see,” he mused. “And you appearing before me naked the other night. That was, I assume, your attempt to show me that you did not care about my opinion?”
Elara’s cheeks flushed as she whirled to face him.
“That was a mistake!” she snapped. “Poor advice from my mother. I assure you it will not happen again.”
“A shame,” he quipped, his lips tugging into a smile.
That lilt of humor, though, only worsened Elara’s mood, and she scowled at him.
“I do not understand you,” she confessed.
“I am equally as confused by you,” the Duke admitted, taking a step toward her as his smirk faded. “But that... revealing performance of yours made me realize that we should discuss the terms of this marriage, as it seems we are not on the same page.”
“At least we can agree on that,” Elara retorted.
The Duke chortled, then moved to her side. Together, they began walking through the gardens.
“It is not that I am ungrateful or unimpressed by your little... show the other night,” he said after a moment. Elara hated how quickly she blushed at his words. “Quite the contrary.”
“You have a strange way of showing how you feel, then, Your Grace,” Elara said bitterly.
“It was circumstance, not emotion, that forced us into this marriage,” he went on, his deep voice surprisingly calm despite her open bitterness toward him. “We do not love each other. Neither truly chose this union, so I do not see why we should consummate it.”
Elara felt a smidge of her anger fade at his words. At least he was not demanding things of her. That was a horrid tale she had heard far too often about newlyweds who were arranged rather than chosen.
“That is surprisingly reasonable of you,” she begrudgingly admitted.
The Duke’s chuckle was deep and raspy, making her stomach flip despite her annoyance with him.
“If you allow me, you will see that I can be reasonable,” he replied, his lips lifting in a small smile as he looked at her. “We are stuck with one another for now, but that does not mean we must make one another miserable. Or to suffer each other’s presence.”
“Not even for an heir?” Elara asked. “Surely you will require one. You are the Duke of Ashworth, after all, and you must have a son to pass the title to.”
The Duke shrugged as they walked together.
“I already have an heir. The baby you heard crying. His name is William,” he replied.
Elara stopped walking as her brows flew up. He as well stopped walking and turned to her with a curious look.
“You cannot claim an illegitimate child as your heir,” Elara said matter-of-factly, crossing her arms. “It is simply not done. Whatever attachment you may have formed with—”
“I would advise you to choose your next words very carefully,” he said quietly. “William is my nephew.”
“Nephew?” she asked. “The baby is your nephew? I thought...”
The Duke’s small grin widened.
“You truly believe that of me,” he said, less a question than a realization. “That I would seduce a woman in my employ, father her child, and then parade him about as my heir without so much as giving his mother my name.”
Fire raced along Elara’s cheeks, and she dipped her head.
“I… Can your nephew even be a true heir?” she asked, ignoring his question.
The Duke huffed out a dry laugh and touched her elbow. Together they began to walk again.
“You know, a more delicate man than I might be offended by your presumptions,” he said after a moment.
“Was what I said so far from the truth?” Elara boldly asked.
To her surprise, he let out a wry chuckle.
“I suppose not. I may not have seduced a maid, but my brother, Augustus, had. However, I did not allow him to treat her as a mistress. They were married when I discovered he had fathered her child. Her name was Alice, and it is most regrettable that she died in childbirth. William, however, is now a member of our family and will receive the benefits of that status.”
Elara dipped her head, feeling guilty for all the wicked thoughts she had had about her husband. Not only that, but she also felt guilty for not thinking of the baby and the life the Duke had saved him from.
“What is the matter?” he goaded, nudging her arm with his own. “Have I ruined the prejudices you have formed about me?”
“I... I believe I owe you an apology,” Elara replied, her tone genuine. “I made too many assumptions, and your staff was so tight-lipped about the whole situation... I suppose I took too many liberties with my thoughts.”
He chuckled.
“My my, if only you had confessed such faults before locking me in your brother’s study with you,” he teased.
She snapped her head toward his, glaring at him.
“This is different. I am still unsure whether I believe what you say about Evander,” she replied coldly. “I still think you know more than you are willing to admit.”
“I assure you that I do not,” he answered, his tone suddenly matter-of-fact, though not as biting as it had once been when they spoke of the subject. “However, after some thought, I must admit that perhaps my brother might.”
Elara stopped walking and turned to him, her heart fluttering with hope.
“Augustus? You mentioned that he was exiled. Where is he?” she asked.
“I do not know,” Constantine confessed. “But I do believe it is time for me to start looking for him. Not just for you or me, but for William. He is growing every day and will no doubt want, at some point, to meet his father.”
Constantine paused and took in a steadying breath.
“You are already aware that it was Evander’s actions that have forced Augustus to be away from his son,” he went on, his tone surprisingly soft. “I suppose now that he is... out of the picture, Augustus could come back.”
Elara flinched at the words. Though she usually would have defended Evander’s actions, in this particular circumstance, she could not bring herself to do so. She could not imagine what it would be like to be forced away from one’s child.
“Whether his deeds were solely good, solely bad, or somewhere in between, I still want to know what happened to my brother,” she said with a weary tone. “I want the truth.”
The Duke cocked his head as he gazed intently down at Elara for a long moment, as if looking beyond her face into her heart. It was not the first time he had done so, and just like before, it made Elara’s nerves fray a little, leaving her feeling so bare.
“Why do you look at me like that?” she asked. “What is it you see?”
“I am trying to figure that out,” he mused, his lips twitching.
“Well, stop it. It is most irritating,” Elara demanded.
He chortled, and they began to walk again, this time back toward the house.
“I have a proposition,” he stated a moment later.
“I thought you did not like those,” Elara quipped. He gave her a tired look, and she rolled her eyes and sighed. “Fine. Please, tell me your proposition.”
“As I said earlier, William is growing every day. I do not have much experience with babies, and I need help with him. I have no idea what to look for in a nurse or a nanny, and either way, I am not sure I want much from either. You help me care for William for the time being while I try to find Augustus.”
When Elara gave him a surprised look, he carried on.
“I know I have been insistent that my family had nothing to do with Evander’s disappearance, but I am willing to entertain the possibility that I was wrong. Do you still have that note you showed me in Adrian’s study?”
“Yes, I do,” Elara quickly agreed, then blushed as she recalled how she stole it from the very house she now lived in.
“Give it to me tomorrow, if you would,” Constantine insisted.
“I shall ask a few of Augustus’s friends about it.
Perhaps they know something. Then give me time to get Augustus back here and talk to him about what happened with Evander.
If it is true that Augustus had something to do with Evander’s death, then I believe we will be able to get an annulment. ”
Elara’s heart twinged oddly at the word.
“Annulment?” she echoed. “You would dissolve our marriage?”
“Neither of us wanted this,” he replied with a shrug.
“So when Augustus arrives and tells us everything he knows, we go our separate ways. We need never speak to each other again,” he said it simply, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world.
“We could manage it more easily if we did not consummate the marriage.”
Elara’s cheeks flushed once more as she recalled her rather bare presentation to him the night before. It was strange, but it was a comfort to know that was why he had refused her, not because he found her unappealing.
Elara bit her bottom lip to keep the small smile from showing.
“So, you had a logical reason for refusing me then,” she could not help but ask. “This marriage will be temporary.”
“You made it very difficult for me to act like a gentleman,” he retorted. “But yes, I did have a logical reason.”
His smile was devilish as he turned to her and stopped, their steps stilling just before they reached the back patio doors of the house. His green eyes darkened as they raked down her figure; the possessiveness in them sent a thrilling chill down Elara’s spine.
“I must warn you, though,” he said, his jesting tone gone from his voice. “You should never come to me like that again.”
Elara’s mouth suddenly went dry as her nipples hardened under his warning and intense stare.
“Why is that?” she boldly asked.
She breathed softly as his hand moved toward her face, and her lashes fluttered shut as he caressed her cheek so gently.
“If you ever strip naked in front of me again, I cannot promise I will show the same restraint as last time, Elara,” he whispered.
His fingers flexed around her jaw, and she followed the gesture willingly, stepping closer to him until their lips were only an inch apart.
“We should not tempt fate, should we?” he asked. “Lest you be right and your brother still be alive?”
With her heartbeat pounding in her ears and her body in a heated frenzy, Elara tried to regain her reason. She should not want this. Should not want to tempt him again right then and there. And yet…
“No,” she finally mustered. “You are right. We should not tempt fate.”
The Duke stared down at her lips for a long time, his fingers soothingly stroking her cheek again and again. Cold rushed over Elara’s body as he let her go and stepped back, looking more annoyed than devilish.
“Well,” he scoffed, pulling open the patio door for her with gusto. “At least we have finally agreed on something.”