She could muster up the courage to face a society that looked down on her. She could even look the other way as her husband abandoned and embarrassed her. She could even bear the pain in her jaw from all her unspoken words of self-defense. But this? This she could not abide.
“Where is my brooch?” Bridget demanded, raising her voice.
Both Eve and Mona’s heads popped into the doorway a moment later, their eyes wide with surprise. Bridget hadneverraised her voice before.
“My lady?” Eve asked, giving her a worried look.
“My brooch,” Bridget repeated, pointing toward the open jewelry box. “It is missing, and I demand to know where it is.”
Mona and Eve shared a tense look before turning their faces back to Bridget.
“We have not seen it, my lady,” Eve offered timidly. “Are you sure you did not just misplace it?”
“I never wear it out of fear of losing it,” Bridget stated, her tone taking on a rare harshness. “It is always in this drawer. Always! Now tell me where it is!”
“My lady, please,” Mona begged. “We do not know. We only ever come in here to return your dresses once they are cleaned.”
“We do not touch your jewelry unless you request us to gather something for you,” Eve added.
“Well, it did not just leap out of the box by itself!” Bridget exclaimed. “Who else comes into my rooms?”
Mona and Eve shared another tense look, only fueling Bridget’s anger.
“Tell me this instant!” she demanded.
“We came in to change your bedding last week,” Eve explained, her tone meek. “His Lordship was in here. That is all we know.”
All the training in quiet obedience her guardians had instilled in Bridget suddenly ceased as her anger erupted into rage. She had overlooked all her husband’s flaws, but this? A dam she never knew existed suddenly broke, flooding her with all her pent-up emotions.
“My lady?” Mona asked timidly as Bridget began to tremble. “Are you—”
Mona’s words were cut off by the sound of shouting coming from downstairs. Bridget’s head whipped toward the sound, and she gritted her teeth. Warren was home. And he had a lot to answer for. Forgetting propriety, Bridget left her robe next to her toppled-over chair and stormed out of her changing room.
She was done being the perfect, obedient wife, and she was about to give her husband a piece of her mind.
“Warren!” she shouted, hurrying down the hall and toward the stairs. “You have gone too far, do you hear me!”
She swung around the banister of the staircase, her waist-long hair swirling around her like a cape as she sped down the stairs.
“You will give me back my mother’s brooch, and you will do so this instant!”
She lifted her head, her teeth bared, her eyes glistening with rage as she reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped in her tracks. It was not her husband whom Mr. Conway, the butler, was trying to keep in the foyer.
She had never seen the tall, handsome, raven-haired man before. Yet as his piercing blue eyes met her brown ones, a spark of recognition shot through her veins. She blushed, but was still too angry to feel anything resembling shame. Bridget dug her fists into her hips, ignoring the fact that she was standing there in only her white shift, and kept her eyes locked on the man’s angry expression, returning it with one of her own.
“Who in God’s name are you?” she demanded sharply.
The raven-haired man’s left brow perked slightly, almost as if he was impressed by her rage.
“My name is Lord Adrian Mason, Duke of Redgrave,” he replied, his tone just as sharp as hers. “And I am here to demand an audience with the Earl of Winslow.”
Bridget scoffed and took a brave step toward the Duke, not backing down from his intense stare.
“Well, you are going to have to wait for your turn, Your Grace,” she answered icily. “For I have the same demand of my husband, and after what he has done, I will not allow you to go first.”
Chapter 3
“Your husband?”
