Chapter 4 #2
“She did not—”
“Then perhaps you do not know your sister as well as you claim you do, Duchess.”
Alice stood up suddenly, the chair scraping across the floor behind her. Her hands gripped the edge of the table, her knuckles pale against the dark wood.
“Perhaps I do not know my sister’s reasons, but you do not know my sister at all, Your Grace.
You know nothing of what she endured.” Her voice shook.
He could see it in the tremor of her lower lip, in the rapid rise and fall of her chest. “You stood in a service yard and offered for a woman you had met once. You wanted a mother for your children and a manager for your household. You did not want a wife. You wanted a function. And when that function became inconvenient, as all human beings occasionally do, you replaced her with the nearest available alternative without pausing to consider why she might have found the prospect unbearable.”
Freddie had gone utterly still, his chicken forgotten, his eyes wide with the fascinated horror of a child witnessing adults dismantle each other with the tools of language. Charlie sat motionless, his poached pear half-eaten on his plate, his expression unreadable.
Kenneth rose. He did it slowly, pushing back his chair with a control that cost him more than he would ever admit, and faced her across the table. “That is enou—”
“It is enough, indeed. Goodnight, boys.”
With that, she turned and walked out.
Kenneth stood at the head of the table. The candles guttered in a draft from the corridor. Freddie had begun to fidget. Charlie had not moved, his small hands resting on the edge of his plate, utterly still.
“Finish your meal,” Kenneth said, his voice steady. “Both of you. Then you may go.”
He left the dining room without looking at either of them.
The corridor outside was empty. He heard Alice’s footsteps on the marble of the entrance hall, quick and light and heading toward the staircase, and followed without even thinking about it.
He caught her at the foot of the grand staircase.
“Duchess.” His hand closed around her upper arm, not hard enough to hurt but with enough firmness to halt her ascent.
She turned. The candlelight from the sconces caught the red in her hair and turned it copper, and for one disorienting moment, he saw not Alice but fire, alive, dangerous, and entirely beyond his control.
“Release me.” Her voice was low. He could feel the tension in her arm beneath his fingers.
“You walked out of dinner.” He released her. “In front of my children. What example does that set?”
“The example of a woman who will not be publicly disparaged by her husband,” she responded, and he became aware of her intoxicating floral scent.
“What example do you set, Your Grace? Hiding in your study at every meal? Addressing your children as though they are subordinates? Providing them with a schedule and a roof, yet little affection?”
The words struck with the accuracy of a blade placed between his ribs. Kenneth felt his own anger rise to meet hers.
“I provide everything they require.”
“You provide what you believe they require. There is a difference.”
“I have kept this household functioning for seven years without assistance. I have raised two boys alone. I have managed an estate that would cripple most men. Do not presume to lecture me on the requirements of parenthood when you have been a mother for precisely three days.”
“Three days is sufficient to observe that your children are starved for your attention.” Her hand came up and pressed against his chest. The heat of it penetrated the fabric as though it were not there at all. “They are seven years old, Kenneth. They need a father, not a patron.”
His name in her mouth did something to him that he could not articulate and would not examine.
He was aware of her hand on his chest. Aware of her body, close enough that the silk of her gown brushed against his legs when she shifted her weight.
Aware of the rapid rise and fall of her chest, of the flush that had spread from her throat to her cheeks and left her eyes bright with a fury that transformed her from the quiet woman he had married into someone he could not look away from.
Almost mesmerized, his hand came up and caught her jaw, his fingers pressing into the softness beneath her ear.
Her eyes widened. Her lips parted. The candlelight caught the moisture there, and heat rushed to his core.
They were inches apart. Still, she could feel the heat radiating from him.
Her breathing was slow, yet he could feel it against his mouth.
The anger between them had not dissipated.
It had transmuted, become something denser and more dangerous, a current that ran from the point where his hand gripped her jaw to the place where her palm pressed against his chest and everywhere in between.
Her mouth was close to his. So very close to his. He could bend his head and close the distance between them and explore the very taste of her—
“Papa?” The voice came from the corridor behind them.
As Kenneth turned his head, he saw Charlie standing at the corner, Freddie slightly behind him. He stepped back, his hand falling from Alice’s jaw. Her hand dropped to her side.
“Charles. Frederick.” His voice was cold. “You should be upstairs.”
“Yes, sir,” Charlie responded, before scurrying away.
Freddie lingered for a few seconds more, then waved at them and left.
Kenneth looked at Alice one final time. Her cheeks were flushed. She held his gaze for three heartbeats, and then she turned and climbed the staircase without a word. He saw her hand gripping the banister all the way up, her knuckles turning white.
He stood at the foot of the staircase until the sound of her footsteps had faded into the upper corridors.
He ran a hand through his hair and exhaled.
What have I gotten myself into?
Then he walked back to his study alone.