“I doubt your charlatan of a brother would have been any more forthright had I made the inquiry.”
Juliana bit her lower lip. He was right about that. Kit had hardly made any protest on her behalf, except for the halfhearted apology he offered after the disaster that was the Hamptons’ ball. At the wedding breakfast, he promptly eschewed her company to talk “business” with the other men in attendance.
“Kit had been spoiled since he was a child,” she told him softly.
“And thus, he saw fit to inflict himself upon the rest of the unsuspecting populace,” her husband muttered, folding his arms over his broad chest.
“But he is still my brother,” she argued. “My blood. My only sibling in this world. Surely you would not detest your sibling for having fallen short of your expectations?”
She saw something flash in his eyes. Something that looked likepain. What could cause the coldhearted man before her to feel pain?
Before she could pursue that matter, though, it was gone as if her mind had merely conjured it. In its place was an icy coldness that seeped into her very bones.
“He may be your brother, but you are nowmy wife,” he told her in a glacial tone that brooked no argument. “You are now the Duchess of Stonevale, and I forbid you from ever speaking to or of your brother again.”
Juliana gaped at him in shock. “You cannot be serious—”
“I most assuredly am,” he growled. “And beyond my certainty in this matter, I am also your husband.”
“No,” she hissed. “You are mybuyer.”
He recoiled as if she had struck him. For a moment, Juliana wondered if she had been a little too harsh with her words. Crude, even. He was probably used to women fawning over him, not to being thrown barbed insults in his face or threatened with disobedience.
She looked away, anger simmering in her chest as she pushed the curtain back and gazed at the passing countryside. Overhead, the clouds had darkened as ominously as her temper.
Grandmama would be most displeased at her fine display, but then again, she had married a duke, had she not? As far as her grandmama was concerned, she had done her duty to her family and exceedingly well at that. If Grandmama only knew that the man Juliana had married had no intention of helping her family at all, she would have been sorely disappointed.
But not as disappointed as Juliana was, though.
And certainly not as livid.
The carriage wheels finally slowed, crunching over a path that seemed to wind forever toward the entangled life she would soon live. Stonevale looked as if it had been uprooted from a book, shrouded in mist and swirling with ivy and gnarled oaks. Juliana’s chest tightened with emotions she could not quite express, caught between horror and fascination.
Cassian did not wait for a footman to open the door for him. He pushed it open the instant the carriage stopped. He offered his bride a hand. It was cold and rough, yet firm. When his boots met the gravel, he leaned more heavily upon his cane than she had previously observed, and she found herself wondering whether it had ever been merely ornamental.
He led her into the Great Hall, where everything was intricately designed. Juliana thought of their own home, far from modest but beginning to be stripped of its former glory. She wondered if, finally, she could rest her weary mind and let herself be cossetted by this new life. The grandeur of Stonevale seemed to promise a chapter in which she no longer had to worry about her next meal.
“Welcome to your new life,” the Duke said coldly. “Before you settle in, do remember that there are rules you are expected to follow. As I said, you are forbidden to speak to or of your brother. He is now dead to you.”
Juliana’s chin lifted. “That is a rather dramatic burial, Your Grace. I do not recall attending the funeral.”
“You will conduct yourself as though you had.”
“I never agreed to that.”
“No,” he said evenly. “You agreed to marry me. The rest follows.”
Her eyes flashed. “Marriage, I was under the impression, did not require the erasure of one’s family.”
“Only when that family proves… inconvenient.”
She stiffened. “You presume far too much.”
“And you underestimate how little patience I possess for defiance.”
She drew in a slow breath, steadying herself. “Very well. What else am I forbidden from?”
“You are also prohibited from the West Tower,” he added. “My rules are few, but if you break one, the consequences will be quite severe. Do not test me.”
