He gritted his teeth and slumped down the leather seats until his knees rested against the cushions on the other side of the carriage. He remained in that position for the full hour and a half it took them to finally make their way back to the manor. By that time, the sun was beginning to rise, and he wished he had just stayed in his apartments on St James Street. His concern there came from whether his solicitor would hear of it and think he was avoiding his wife.
Of course, that was precisely what he would have been doing, and what he had done all evening, but that was hardly the point.
He paused upon entering the darkened, silent manor. Upstairs, he knew, Eleanor would be slumbering in the bedchamber directly next to his. The one, moreover, with an adjoining door that only he had the key to.
No, he could not return there in his current state of mind.
A candle in one hand, he made his way to his study, opening the door and enclosing himself inside. There was a small sofa by the fireplace; he would make his bed here until the sun fully made its ascent, and perhaps once he knew she had risen for the day, he would retire. That way, he could spend even less time in her company, and crucially out of temptation’s enticing grasp.
But when he raised the candle to make his way to the drinks cabinet, he experienced another major shock of the evening. Instead of its usual disarray, his study appeared—there was no other word for it—tidy.The space he had cultivated to resemble his state of mind had been swept clean. The clothes had beenremoved, the trays of spent food and dirty glasses equally missing. Paperwork had been set into neat piles on his desk, unopened correspondence laid out for him to read.
Nothing remained in its proper place, the placehehad assigned for it.
“The devil take it,” he muttered, striding to his drinks cabinet and opening it, only to find that the brandy he had expected to find there, or at least somewhere, was missing. And there were no glasses. He swept his gaze across his desk, in case he had missed something, and noticed a note in handwriting that looked decidedly not his own.
My dear husband, it read.I took the liberty of cleaning your room so you did not have to be surrounded in such chaos. If you prefer things to be laid out in a different manner, you need only say so to me and I will be happy to make any changes you deem necessary.
Eleanor
His fist crumpled the paper, obscuring the cheerful words.
Of course, she must have come in here and thought she was doing him a favor. That, or she had been highly trained in psychological warfare, and this was her first strategic move.
Well, if they were to do battle, she had selected her opponent well.
He would not give up. And by God, he—
Movement along the far wall caught his attention, and before he knew what he was doing, he had hurled his candle at it. He missed spectacularly, the object in question moving far too fast for him to track, and the candlestick clattered impotently against the wall, its flame quite out.
“Damnation,” he said aloud, his heart still pounding, though it had been nothing more than a mouse. No doubt his new wife’s cursed pet, though why of all things she had chosen a mouse was utterly beyond him.
Unless, of course, it had been chosen with the precise purpose of discomfiting him. And how well it had worked.
He dropped his head into his hands. The old familiar fear returned, brought on by anger and the way she so overtly disrupted his plans and intentions. If she stayed in his life, he would undoubtedly get used to the way she carried around. He would becomeaccustomedto the disruption. Perhaps he would even want to rise to the challenge—either to assert his dominance or to win her over—and then he would be stuck once more caring about someone who would have no reason to care for him in return.
Just likeLydia.
His heart, just as it did whenever he thought ofher—though it had been rare of late—tightened.
If he gave Eleanor a chance, she would dig just as much of a hole in his heart. It was better,easier, if he put an end to it now. Forced her to leave him so he could go back to his life of never letting anyone be around him for more than a few weeks at a time. Once she had disappeared, everything would go back to the way it should be. Not this new reality in his tidied room and with a woman who could not seem to stop herself from forcing herself into his world.
The sooner she annulled the marriage the better, or there was no saying what would happen—or if either of them would survive the encounter.
CHAPTER TEN
Eleanor’s first proper opportunity to seduce her husband came shortly after her visit with Olivia. That night, he had not come home before dawn—at least not that she had seen—but after lying in wait for him a few hours, she pounced as he was making his way from his study to the dining room.
“Ravenscroft!” she called, scurrying to his side. Olivia had loaned her one of her more outrageous dresses, and Eleanor had taken the steps of ordering some garbs from the fashion places she adored. However cold and distant the Duke was in many ways, he was at least generous with his pin money, and she had more than enough to procure a few gowns. That was especially important now they had social events to attend.
His gaze slid down the frothy pink dress, then back to her face. “What?” he snapped.
Not to be put off, she smiled at him. “Have you seen your study?”
He came to an abrupt stop. “You mean my personal space, which you saw fit to enter and destroy?”
“Destroy?” She blinked. “I tidied it.”
“And did I give you leave to do so?” he growled, stepping forward so she was forced to yield ground. Another flare of excitement came over her at the concept of his body coming so close to hers, pressing into it, pushing her up against the wall. Heat like lit coals burned low in her stomach. “Did I give you permission to sort through my things?”
