“Well, not all the time.” Levi was well and truly exasperated now. “I need to be able to spend time on my own occasionally, don’t I? I need to be able to focus on my work. She walks into my study without even…well, shedoesknock, but I feel unable to turn her away!”
Gregory sipped his ale. “I can see how maddening this must be for you,” he agreed. “I don’t know that I could abide a wife who…occasionally knocked on the door of my study.”
“Watch your mouth, Gregory.”
“I’m sorry, but I must say this. You’ve grown used to your solitude, and of course it would be an adjustment for you to have a lady in your home. That’s to be expected. I think you have allowed your desire for solitude to go too far, however. Your wife is supposed to be a part of your life, Levi. You’re supposed to let her in. If she knocks at your study door, that’s only because she has a desire to see you—to speak to you. And while you may struggle to see it, that desire is a good thing.”
“A good thing, is it?” Levi growled. “What about the night she walked into my bedroom—withoutknocking? Also a good thing?”
Gregory raised his eyebrows. “I beg your pardon?”
“I was minding my own business, readying myself for bed, when she came marching through the door adjoining my room and hers as if she owned the place!”
Gregory sat back in his chair. “Well. That sounds dreadful, Levi. The last thing any gentleman should want or tolerate is a wife who comes to his chambers in the evening. What did you do? How did you manage that horrible situation?”
“I sent her away, of course,” Levi growled.
Gregory sighed. “Of course you did. I don’t know why I asked.”
“You know I don’t want a marriage like that. Haven’t I been clear and consistent?”
“Yes, you have, although I can’t imagine why. The duchess is a lovely woman. Better than a scoundrel like you had any right to expect.”
“I’m a duke. She’s the daughter of a baron.”
“Yes, but you have a reputation as a rake to contend with.” Gregory smiled good-naturedly at his friend. “But the fact of the matter is that while you found your way into this marriage on luck alone, it was something more than that connecting you to this family in the first place. They were happy to secure an arrangement for the other daughter, even ifshehad the good sense to run away at the first opportunity—honestly, I think I would like to meet her. She must be a fascinating creature.”
“Well, nobody knows where she is, so I wouldn’t count on meeting her if I were you,” Levi said shortly. “And I swear to you, Gregory, if you don’t control your mouth, it will be my fist you’ll be meeting.”
Gregory took a sip of his ale and said nothing, perhaps sensing that he had come close to pushing Levi too far. Levi considered getting up and leaving—he did not appreciate Gregory’s jabs at him, friendly though they might have been. Sometimes, when his friend had a few drinks in him, he could take things too far.
But he didn’t leave. Instead, he signaled for another round of drinks.
“I just think about my mother,” he said after a while. “She was miserable in her marriage to my father, and she was bitter and wretched because of it.”
“You aren’t your father. Your duchess is not your mother, for that matter. I know that you fear the life they had, but that need not be your fate. And in the meantime, you’re allowing your past to dominate you, Levi. You’re allowing it to steal something that ought to be yours—happiness with the woman you’ve married.”
“What would you do in my place, then?”
Gregory grinned. “The next time she tries to come into your bedchamber, welcome her. That’s my suggestion. Don’t you think you’ll be happy if you do? Won’t it be good to have her by your side? You deserve it, Levi. And you deserve a bit of fun, too—unless you’re keeping up your dalliances on the side, that is?”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous.”
“It’s not ridiculous to ask. You would hardly be the first married man to have mistresses, and you did just say that you weren’t taking your wife to bed, so it seems a fairly reasonable question to me.”
“You just said that I wasn’t like my father,” Levi reminded his friend. “You know that I’m not the sort of man to betray my wife.”
“In which case you ought to indulge her in all the pleasures of a marriage.”
“And if she doesn’t want that?”
“Levi. Do try to be serious about this. If she didn’t want that, why would she have come to your bedchamber in the evening?”
“Duty, perhaps?”
“Perhaps. That tells me that you don’t know for certain,” Gregory said. “You haven’t bothered to find out what would best please your own wife—and you should, Levi. You owe her that. You owe yourself that. If you don’t provide it, you can hardly claim to be the husband she deserves, and whether you believe it or not that makes you no better than your father.”
“That’s a cruel thing to say.”
