“I’m quite certain it is, but I don’t sing.”
She was left with nothing to say, which meant that she had no choice but to enter the Duke’s Suite.
Indigo draperies, the same shade as the coverlet, covered the many floor-to-ceiling windows. The four-poster bed, sitting on its dais, was swathed in the same material.
The round carpet covering the mahogany floorboards was woven with a deep border in indigo and lavender chains. Lavender, honoring the first crop ever to be planted at Chavensworth, was also replicated on the pillows of the upholstered chairs beside the window and the embroidery on the coverlet.
On the far wall was the defining feature of the room,a series of cupboards with gold-leaf fronts. Each cabinet bore a scene from Chavenworth’s history, from the planting of the first lavender beds to the building of the house itself. The gilt required constant maintenance and delicate handling, so that it didn’t flake and peel from the wood.
“Do you really intend to spend the night on a flimsy cot?” he asked from behind her.
“Unless you give me leave to return to my room,” she answered quite amiably.
“Do you need my leave?”
He was, like it or not, her husband. But this union would not be dictated solely by his rules but also by her wishes. That, she’d decided in the two days she’d been locked in her room. If he did not like it, Mr. Eston could simply go away, leaving her in the not-unwanted state of being married with no husband in sight.
However, it was one thing to make such a decision in her own room and quite another to do so in his presence.
“I think it would be best if we began this marriage in the traditional way,” he said.
She clasped her hands together, making a fist of the two of them. How very cold she was.
“I will not bed you,” she said.
Would it become a contest of more than wills between them? He was a very large man, and although she was taller than most of her acquaintances, she could not best him in strength. Would he force her? Surely not. He had seemed like a gentleman upon their first meeting. And he had been kind and polite enough in the carriage. But did his surface veneer rub off in the bedroom? Would he expose himself as a vicious and horrid man?
“In New South Wales,” he said, striding across the room, “the aborigines do not sleep together for at least three nights.”
She frowned at him. She didn’t know whether to satisfy her curiosity or drop the subject entirely. Talking to him, however, kept her attention from what he was doing, and what he was doing was undressing in front of her. He didn’t even take the precaution of stepping behind the screen erected in the corner for just such a purpose. No, Douglas Eston was above such sensibilities or beyond them. He was removing his waistcoat, then his shirt, divesting himself of his clothing with such an insouciant attitude that she suspected he had done so many times before.
“You’re very comfortable undressing in front of strange females, aren’t you?”
“You are my wife. I believe you should become accustomed to it.”
Well, she was very muchnotgoing to become accustomed to it, regardless of what he said. She deliberately turned and stared at the opposite wall.
“What are aborigines?”
“The native people of New South Wales. It’s located on the other side of the world.”
“I know where New South Wales is,” she said. “I’m very well-read. I’ve just never heard the termaborigine.”
“Their habits are no odder than this union of ours, Your Ladyship.”
“I’m not to be addressed in that fashion,” she said. “It’s Lady Sarah. Or my Lady.”
“I would prefer Sarah,” he said. “Despite the fact that you’re the daughter of a duke.”
“I had absolutely nothing to do with the circumstances of my birth,” she said.
“And if you had? Would you have changed anything? Or would you have preferred, instead, to have been born at a different time? A handmaiden to Cleopatra, perhaps?”
“Why couldn’t I have been Cleopatra herself?” she asked, staring into the maw of the fireplace.
“Do you see yourself as royalty?”
She considered the question for some seconds before she answered him. “There is a great deal of responsibility to being royal,” she said. “For that matter, there is a great deal of responsibility to being the daughter of a duke.”
