Magnus raised both brows this time and scoffed. “Right.” He continued walking down the hall. “The drawing room lies to your left, the library beyond, and breakfast is always served in the east parlor. Your chamber is here.”
Dorothy hurried after him, scanning the vast area, the windows he pointed to, and the ground beneath them. “You dispatch me through your household as though you were reading an inventory list, Your Grace.”
“Efficiency spares us both needless delay,” he replied without so much as a glance in her direction. “You shall grow accustomed. You have the housekeeper at your beck and call; she will assist you.”
Magnus halted before a heavy oak door and then turned to her. “This will be your room,” he said.
Dorothy blinked, glancing back along the passageway. They had walked much farther than she had expected. “Here?” she asked carefully. “Where’s yours? There are no other grand doors in this wing. Just… smaller doors.”
He did not appear ruffled by the question. Rather, his mouth curved in that faint, dark way of his. “On the other side.”
Her brows rose. “The other side?”
“My wing,” he clarified, as though it were the most natural arrangement in the world.
The answer startled her. Dorothy tilted her head to the side, puzzled. “But that is hardly… customary. As a matter of order, the Duke and Duchess are meant to have chambers adjoining. An antechamber at the very least, a...”
“Custom dictates that, does it?” he cut in, a thread of smugness weaving through his voice. His eyes glinted with faint amusement, as though he had caught her in some small presumption. “Tell me, Dorothy, who assured you of such a rule?”
The question made her falter. Her sisters’ faces rose unbidden in her mind, each of them duchesses in their own right, each of them insisting upon the proper order of things. They had lectured her relentlessly, even made her take notes as though she were a schoolgirl, drilling into her all the dos and don’ts of her new station. There was no possibility they had been wrong. Yet the admission stuck in her throat, pride and stubbornness fastening it there. She merely pressed her lips together, unwilling to gift him the satisfaction.
She recalled, with a small inward groan, how her sisters had whispered, rather solemnly, that lying with her husband would also be part of her duty. She had stared at them, utterly bewildered. Surely, they meant simply spending the night in each other’s company, and she could not fathom why Magnus looked so appalled at the notion. She had taken a bath that morning; she was certain she did not snore, yet apparently, there was more to it than she understood.
Dorothy crossed her arms. “Then how are we supposed to become one?”
It was the first time Magnus’s demeanor shifted ever so obviously. His gaze softened, and he took a step back. “Excuse me?”
Dorothy clutched her hands together, her words spilling out in a rush before she could stop them. “It is only that my sisters were most insistent. They said the wedding night is when… when one truly becomes a wife. That it is not enough to stand before the vicar or to sign the register, but that a man and his wife must… must become one. We need to become one.”
“You want to become one with me?” he asked with raised eyebrows.
“Well… it is important, is it not?” she said, thrusting her chin up and planting both hands on her hips, as though she were scolding him rather than betraying her own nervous flutter. “That is how we can be properly married. We cannot do that if your bedchamber is miles away!”
Magnus stilled, her words hanging in the air between them with more force than she could possibly have intended. His lips curved, not in amusement exactly, but in something sharper, darker. He took a slow step forward, and then another, until the width of the hallway seemed to shrink around them.
“You want to become one with me?” he asked again, his voice low, and his eyebrows raised in a way that was at once taunting and entirely too serious.
He stopped only when the wall was at her back, his hand braced just beside her shoulder, caging her without ever touching. The distance between them shrank to a breath.
“Explain yourself,” he asked.
Dorothy swallowed hard, her voice barely above a whisper. “Well, it is only that... that is what I have been told.”
His head inclined, eyes narrowing with deliberate patience. “What have you been told?”
“I already told you. A marriage is not complete unless—” She faltered, her fingers twisting into her skirts.
“Unless?” he echoed smoothly, drawing the word out. “Do finish the thought.”
Her chest rose and fell quickly, as though breath itself had deserted her. “Unless a man and a woman are together.”
He stilled, then repeated, “Together.” The syllables lingered between them. “Do you even comprehend what you mean by that, Dorothy?”
Her eyes darted to his. In that moment, she wondered if she should have said anything at all. Cecilia and Emma both did not have wedding nights, and their marriages turned out nearly perfect. She did not even need perfect; she just needed it to work.
Magnus let silence stretch, his gaze burning into her. “Do you think I have cheated you of this… completion?”
“I did not say cheated,” she hurried to correct, though her hands trembled at her sides. “Please disregard what I have said. I shall retire to my chambers.”
