“Stop.” His hand closed around her arm in the corridor, firm but not rough, and Mary spun to face him.
They stood between two wall sconces, the candlelight catching the hard lines of his jaw and the darkness in his eyes.
“You cannot walk away from the table in the middle of dinner,” he said. His voice was low. “You are the Duchess of Blackholm. This house has staff. They talk. You must?—”
“I must what?” Mary stepped closer. She could feel the heat of him, and it infuriated her. “Sit and smile while you insult my sister? You want a duchess, Your Grace? Then treat me like one.”
His grip on her arm loosened, but he did not release her. His breath came faster. She watched his eyes drop to her mouth and snap back up, and her own pulse kicked hard against her throat.
The corridor shrank. The candlelight shifted. He was close enough that she could see the flecks of gold in his dark eyes and the tension in the muscle of his jaw. Close enough that if either of them moved, if either of them breathed wrong, the distance between them would vanish entirely.
A cry broke through the silence above them. Rising in its urgency.
Tommy.
Mary pulled her arm free. The Duke released her. They stood apart, the spell broken, the corridor wide again.
“I will see to the baby,” Mary said.
Mary turned and climbed the staircase without waiting for his permission. Tommy’s cries pulled her upward, and she followed the sound, grateful for a reason to leave, grateful for something that needed her more than her pride did.
CHAPTER 4
“Shall I draw a bath, Your Grace? It helps with the soreness.” Hattie stood beside the dressing table with a pitcher of warm water in one hand and a look of gentle knowing on her face.
The morning light pushed through the curtains and fell across the bed, which was rumpled on one side and untouched on the other.
Mary felt the heat climb from her collarbone to the tips of her ears. She pulled the coverlet higher. “A bath would be lovely. Thank you, Hattie.”
Hattie curtsied and disappeared through the adjoining door. Mary listened to the sound of water being poured into the copper tub and pressed her palms against her face.
There was no soreness from the wedding night, for the Duke had not come to her room.
She had lain awake for an hour after climbing into bed, listening to the unfamiliar sounds of the house. The tick of the clock on the mantelpiece. The creak of old timber settling. Footsteps in the corridor that had slowed near her door, paused, and continued past. She had held her breath. The footsteps had not returned.
She should have felt relieved. She did feel relieved. The Duke was a stranger, and the thought of him crossing that threshold, standing at the foot of her bed in the candlelight, was enough to make her stomach clench with something she refused to examine.
And yet…
Mary pressed her fingers harder against her cheeks and pushed the thought away. She had married a man who viewed their union as a transaction. Disappointment had no place in the arrangement, and she would not give it room.
She rose, bathed, and dressed. Hattie pinned her hair into a simple knot and fastened a strand of pearls at her throat. Mary studied herself in the mirror. She looked like a duchess, but she felt like a woman wearing a costume that did not fit.
“Where is His Grace this morning?” she asked.
“Gone out, Your Grace. Before dawn, Mrs. Cahill says. Business in the city.”
Mary nodded. Of course he had.
She descended the staircase, took breakfast alone in the dining room where they had argued the night before, and then went upstairs to the nursery.
“He took the whole bottle this morning, Your Grace. Every drop.”
Mrs. Bridwell lifted Tommy from the crib and settled him into Mary’s arms with the practiced ease of a woman who recognized when a request was unnecessary. Mary had not asked to hold him. She had walked into the nursery, looked at the crib, and Mrs. Bridwell had simply placed him there.
Tommy blinked up at her. His eyes were dark blue, the murky, shifting color of a newborn who had not yet decided what he would become. Charlotte’s nose. Charlotte’s chin. Mary traced the curve of his cheek with one finger, and something ached behind her ribs.
“He’s grown,” she said.
