She was his wife; this arrangement was for life, and things could not go on as they were. What was more, Christopher did not want them to. He could not say exactly what he wanted, only that he didn’t want it to continue as it was.
That, at least, was something that he could change.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rose should have been asleep in bed.
She wanted to be asleep. She was tired to her core. Her entire body was worn through like an old shirt. She had no energy, was unable to focus, and whenever she tried to stand, the room turned around her.
But she was also angry, and stressed, and the last thing she could think of doing was lying down in a comfortable bed and drifting off to sleep as if she didn’t have a worry in the world.
All she had in this world were worries, and all of them were to do with her husband.
I cannot believe him. It is one thing to be ignored. But to be treated so rudely as that? To be spoken down to as if I do not matter? Of all the things I might have signed up for, that was not one of them!
Rather than doing the smart thing and retiring to her bedroom, Rose went to the library. As she was not allowed to use the Duke’s office, this here was her place of work.
She was sitting at the main table, lists of tasks she needed to do spread before her, eyes scanning them, the quill in her hand as she started to check off and underline those she needed to focus on. At least that’s what she should have been doing.
Frustratingly, her brain was foggy and thick, making it harder than it ought to have been to concentrate. Or to do much or anything, for that matter.
“I was hoping that we might talk,” a soft voice spoke from across the room.
Rose started in surprise and snapped her head up to see who had spoken. When she saw the culprit, she narrowed her eyes and bowed her head back over the desk. “I can’t imagine what about.”
Her husband walked across the room, unperturbed by the sharpness of her response. “I was hoping to explain what happened earlier,” he said.
“There is no need,” she said, still without looking. “I know well enough what happened.”
“No, I don’t think that you do.”
She scoffed. “It does not take a genius. You are angry with me. You saw your friends taking my side. You worried that I was going to—” She scoffed again. “I do not even know. Win them over? Steal them from you? Whatever it was, in a desperate act to prove to yourself that you are still the man of this house, you –”
“That’s not it at all,” he said.
Christopher stopped in front of the table where she was sitting. He stayed back a few feet, however, but she could feel his eyes on her, unblinking and determined to have his way.
Rose’s head was spinning, and she really did not want to be doing this right now.If he is so desperate to pretend that I do not exist, why does he insist on talking to me at all? What does he want?
“It does not matter the reason.” Rose looked up from her work.
“Of course it does.”
“No,” she said. “It does not.”
She looked at him plainly, deciding that anger was not what this situation needed. Surprisingly, the Duke did not look angry with her either; if anything, she might have even said that she saw concern in his eyes.
That thought almost made her laugh. From all she knew of her husband so far, emotions such as worry and concern for another were not what he was known for.
But she met his eyes and held them. He no longer had that same effect over her that he did when she first saw him. Yes, he was handsome and physically impressive, and the green of his eyes was certainly alluring. But for Rose to have been affected by them, she needed to care about the man behind the eyes. As things stood, she simply did not.
A good thing, as he did not care about her either.
“If I apologize to you, will you leave this conversation as is, so I can get back to what I am doing?” she said simply.
He blinked. “Apologize to me? What for?”
“Oh, a many number of things. I suppose I can start with all the changes I have been making. Ones that, while I maintain they are for the best, I do concede that perhaps I should have checked with you before making them.”
