Catherine blinked and flinched at the sudden movement. The urge to pull her behind him was strong. Still, they stood tall.
“I will not caution you again to mind how you speak about my wife, Father,” Richard sneered as his nose crinkled in disdain for the man across the room from him.
“Ah, so at least you have started to grow a spine? A little too late, do you not think?” the duke mocked him. “I have already arranged for your engagement to the Dowager Duchess of Elmsworth, and she has accepted. You shall not undermine me in this. Now, get rid of that so that we might speak in private.”
Rage boiled his blood. Ofcourse,the man had gone behind his back and doneexactlywhat he had said no to.
“You are to be wed in a fortnight,” the duke concluded with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I expect this tantrum to be over by then. I do not care how you do it, but you will wed the dowager duchess. It is my will, and if you do not, I shall punish you however I see fit. Am I understood?”
“I shall do no such thing. I am already married.”
The duke’s cold, black gaze cut to him again. He slammed his fist once more, sending papers flying off of his desk. “Enough!”
Richard glanced at Catherine, whose expression was wholly unreadable. “Would you care to wait in the hall?”
She only cut her eyes to him, assessing whether he needed her to stay or not, and nodded curtly. She walked backward out of the room, as if she could not stand the notion of turning her back on the duke. Given his propensity for backstabbing, he could not blame her. It was a wonder that her own temper was reigned in so tightly.
“At least it listens,” the duke sneered smarmily.
“She has a name, and you will give her the respect that she deserves as my wife,” Richard warned. He felt as if he were shaking with rage.
“Which is none. This ‘marriage’ is a sham, and I will not treat it as anything else.”
“It is completely real. Witnessed and verified in the eyes of God, and granted by special license. It’s perfectly valid, and you cannot do anything about it. Which, I think is your real issue here. You have always wished to control everything I do, and any time that I deviate from the course that you have personally selected for me, Father, you cannot handle it!”
The duke hated to be referred to as Father.
If he was going to continue to insult him, then Richard would do so as well.
“You are only doing this as some pathetic attempt to be a brown-nosed little do-gooder,” the duke sneered.
“Doing what is right is not being a do-gooder, Father, and even if it was—what is so terrible about doing the right and honorable thing? I know that you certainly would not know anything about that, would you?”
The duke snorted derisively. “I have made a life for us, provided for you, and turned our holdings profitable. I have doubled the wealth of our lineage, and you are mad because it was not always palatable to you? Get off your high horse, boy, or I shall knock you off of it. I have endured your tantrums long enough.”
“If only Mother could see you now. What would she think of you, I wonder?” Richard said with every bit of coldness and ice that he felt.
Silence fell heavily between them.
The duke’s upper lip twitched as he went lethally still.
Richard’s comment was a low blow. So far under the belt, it was cruel. Mother was a subject that was wholly off-limits between the pair of them. The duke had always acted as if he were the only one who was ever allowed to mourn her.
He was the only one affected by her untimely death and, therefore, the only one with a broken heart. The loss of his wife was, in the old man’s eyes, infinitely more painful than losing one’s mother. Even though it was the loss of the same woman that they shared the pain of.
“Get out,” the duke hissed bitterly.
Richard knew that the win was a cheap one, but he also knew that if he did not leave the room swiftly that the pair of them were going to come, once more, to physical blows. The outcome of which would be anyone’s guess.
“We shall see you at breakfast then, Father,” Richard whispered in a dark tone.
“Sleep with one eye open, boy.”
Chapter 21
Wallingham Place—One Month Later
Staying in her own room had proven to be more difficult than she had thought that it was going to be. She had thought that certainly, it would be for the best to have her own sleeping arrangements. It mattered little that that duke happened to insist upon the exact same thing for the pair of them. She told herself over and over again that she did not care what the miserable bastard thought of her or her marriage.
