Beatrice
Beatrice took Alexander’s handas he helped her out of the carriage, and she stood in front of her childhood home.
It hadn't changed in the few days she had been gone, but she had.
Standing here holding her husband's hand, it was difficult to remember why she had always felt at home here. The small cottage held few happy memories for her, and she was dreading the moment her father opened the door. Once he realized she was back, he wouldn’t want her to leave again.
Alexander pulled his hand away, and she almost reached to snatch it back. But then he placed it on her lower back, warm and reassuring, and Beatrice smiled up at him. This was more support than she’d thought she would have when she came back to get her things. She’d assumed she would be staring down her father alone.
But with Alexander at her side, she was not as nervous.
Alexander's presence bolstered her as she walked up to the front door and rapped gently before letting herself in. Her father would be surprised that she would walk into the home that hadbeen hers only a few days before, but he would have to deal with it. With any luck, he would be at the tavern. She just had to get in, get her things, and get back out.
It wasn't as if she had many things to collect. She didn’t need to bring anything to Eldenwilde, because Alexander had been more than generous in taking care of her needs. But there were some things that she would be loath to leave behind, such as her personal collection of books and her mother’s hair comb—the only thing she'd left behind when she disappeared.
“Who’s in my house?” a voice roared, and her father stumbled out of his bedroom.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said when he saw Beatrice, and he made as if he was going to turn around, but then he looked back at her and saw Alexander. His face darkened.
“And who’s this?” he said, making his way toward them. “Are you the man who stole my daughter?”
Beatrice opened her mouth, but Alexander beat her to it.
“I did not steal your daughter, Montgomery,” he said, taking a step forward so he was closer to her father than she was. “Beatrice married me willingly, and we are going to be very happy together.”
He was protecting her.
“And you couldn’t wait for me to get home?” her father said, glaring balefully at Alexander. “I think you married her for a reason, and I’m going to find it out.”
“He did not force me to marry him,” Beatrice stated firmly. Alexander's touch on her waist became firmer, as if he was lending her support, and she took a half step forward to stand beside him. “I married Alexander of my own free will, and there is nothing you can do about it.”
Her father stared in surprise. She had never stood up to him in this way before.
“He has no claim on you,” her father said.
“He does,” Beatrice said. “I am his wife, and that gives him more of a claim than you have.”
Her father glared. “He only married you because he wants something,” he announced.
“As if you don’t?” Beatrice asked. “You only ever wanted me to take care of you. As soon as I was old enough to live here without an adult, you took me from a home where I was loved and brought me here to take care of you. Alexander has taken me to a place where I already feel at home, and I feel loved.”
She didn't dare look at her husband as she uttered those words. She didn't know how he would take it or what he would say, but it was the truth. She felt more loved at Eldenwilde than she ever had with her father.
Even if Alexander wasn't in love with her, he respected her, he cared for her, and he made her feel safe.
She could never return to her father's house, not after experiencing what it felt like to be cared for by a man who was good.
The thought surprised her. All along, everyone had said that Alexander was callous and uncaring. The rumors had called him everything from arrogant to a beast, and she’d foolishly believed them.
But she knew better now. Alexander was a good man, and her father was the beast.
“Your daughter has chosen me,” Alexander said, his hand still firm on her lower back, like an anchor holding her steady in a storm. “Everyone on my estate has already fallen in love with her, and she is welcome to leave if she ever wishes to do so. But I pray she won’t, because I would never be able to find another wife like her. She is kind and caring, she is adventurous and brave, and she is independent but she puts up with me. I hope that we will never be parted.”
His words were spoken swiftly and firmly, and Beatrice glanced up at him in surprise. If he had asked her before today what she thought his feelings were about her, she would have said he was indifferent, that he had married her because he needed a wife before his thirtieth birthday and she was merely a means to an end.
But he was defending her to her father as if he loved her. Even though he hadn't said it in so many words…was it possible that her husband was beginning to feel the same way she was? Could their marriage of convenience become something more?
Her father was turning red in the face, but he seemed unable to find words to refute Alexander. He took a step forward, and Alexander swiftly moved between her and her father, blocking her view of him.
