Daria sighed. People mistook her plain-speak as mockery. People mistook her in general. Her garments didn’t make sense—to them. Her passions were considered peculiarities. Asidefrom Delia, not a soul understood her. Delia, whom she’d shared bedchambers with for the entirety of their lives.
“Would you stop?” she hissed. A whorl of charged emotions swirled in her breast. “I have to speak with my brother.” Whose heart will be broken from this day forward.
“You are one of five sisters.”
“Six,” she gritted out.You know him not at all. He knows you even less.
Gregory removed a heavy-looking gold chain from inside his jacket and brandished a watch with seal and key. “Even better.” Squinting, he angled the timepiece towards the light of the window. Did he fail to realize he required spectacles? Or were his pride and vanity so great he feareddetractingfrom his handsome looks?
Each question raised and revelation made about her new husband set her stomach muscles into fresh knots.
The rising morning sun reflected off the intaglio gem, briefly blinding her.
Daria shut her eyes quick. When she opened them, she found Gregory stuffing the piece back into his interior pocket.
“Why?” she asked quietly.
“I’m ascertaining how long exactly it is we’ve been waiting out here, little raven. The answer is too long. I have business to attend to. Meetings…”
While he rambled on a list of things more important than Daria’s impending meeting with her family, Daria’s belly twisted.I’ve gone and bound myself to a man who is a coldhearted stranger.
She interrupted him. “I wasn’t asking about your timepiece, Gregory.” She made herself say his name. It did a tiny bit in making him more man than mere stranger. “I meant what does being one of six sisters have to do with telling my brother we are married?” she asked quietly.
Gregory frowned.
He frowned.Him?
Why, of a sudden, did he not have a response?
An ugly thought seeded in her brain.
The acrid sting of bile burned the back of her tongue. “Because Clayton has my other sisters to marry off?” she quietly supplied. “Is that what you mean?”Please don’t let that be what you mean.
His expression shifted, barely.
What upside-down world was this where Daria had words and the glib Duke of Argyll remained stricken silent?
“I did not say that,” he murmured smoothly.
“No. That is why I’m asking you what you meant?”
His silence gave a damning affirmation.
A trembling started in her toes and climbed fast.
She fought to contain that rapid spiral. As a girl she hadn’t been able to, but she’d come to master those riotous moments. This was the greatest challenge she’d confronted in more years than she could remember.
“Is that how you view your sisters?” Daria’s couldn’t contain her desperation. “Like objects there to enhance your power and wealth?”
He released a beleaguered sigh. “This is a tiresome line of questioning, my stricken bride.”
Stricken. Fury nearly blinded her. Daria leveled her gaze on her husband’s bored features.
That is what he wants. Do not forget that.
Being one of seven siblings was all that managed to keep her from lighting into him.
“As you will.” Daria edged her chin up. “Consider me tiring, my predictable husband.” Aghast, his eyebrows shot up. She thrilled in her upper hand. “I asked you a question.”
