Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

T he next morning at breakfast, Phillip was in good spirits.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked her, his pleasant tone laced with concern.

"Quite," Marina answered, smiling brightly at him.

"Wonderful," he remarked. "I did not sleep at all."

Her brow furrowed. "Why ever not?"

"I spent the night securing the books to the upper shelf," he answered, a glint of mischief twinkling in his eye. Marina smiled, happy that they were so far away at the large table as her cheeks became tinted with pink. "I am afraid that my home has caused you nothing but injury. How does your hand fare? Has it been healing well?"

Marina nodded. "Yes, Your Grace. Thank you. Your swift care must be the cause."

The Duke gave Marina a tender smile, but the air between them grew stale with silence for many moments afterward. There was still some tension between them that had yet to settle. They were more than strangers but not quite as husband and wife should have been.

"I understand from Mathilde that you are quite enthusiastic about the changes you wish to bring to the house."

"I am," Marina said airily, her smile returning to her face with ease. "When Mama died, my duties were largely the upkeep of what she had already established. She kept meticulous journals on everything—her garden, kitchen menus, even the manner in which she updated the décor in our home. She was of the belief that—Oh, this must be such a bore for you."

"Not at all," Phillip corrected her hastily. "Your mother was of the belief that…?"

"Well, that the entrance to a home should be the most up to date. She said that if people see a stylish entrance upon arriving to a home that it only follows, they will remember the home as being stylish. After that, the ballroom, if there is one, as there are more eyes on that room than any other in the house, even if it is not used but once or twice a year at most."

"Your mother sounds like a rather refined woman."

Marina smiled warmly. "She was. She did not come from a family with much of a title or a great fortune, but she was tactful, and beautiful and a great many other things which suited her character. You would have liked her, I think."

"Would she have approved of me? That is much more important."

Marina hummed thoughtfully, her fork dangling in the air between her two fingers. "Not at first," she said honestly. "She believed in courting. Although, I would have argued that my age was a factor here."

"Your age?"

"You truly have never read a scandal sheet in your life, have you?"

Phillip shook his head. "Of course not. I was mostly kept from society as a child. And then I kept myself away."

"I have been considered a spinster for at least three seasons now. It is not typical for ladies of my age marry, much less be courted. I wonder if she would have taken that into consideration, sometimes, but I think she would have thought it improper regardless."

"What do you call this, then? If not courting."

"I beg your pardon?"

"What happens, Marina, when a man and a woman are courting?"

"Oh. Hmm." She turned her gaze upward as if looking for the answers on the ceiling. "I suppose it depends on the man and the woman. I have never been courted—not properly."

Phillip remembered something, suddenly, at her words, and perked up. "Actually, I have a theory about that. I will tell you the theory, and you correct me only if I am incorrect."

"All right, then."

"I believe—and I have thought on this for some time now—that you had many suitors when you were younger." He paused, raising an eyebrow in her direction, but Marina did not contradict him. "In fact, I've observed that you are very well versed in these games that the ton play using their children as pawns on a chessboard."

"That's a rather stiff way to look at it all, but yes, I suppose that I am."

"And would you say that this is because you've spent a great deal of time perhaps chaperoning your eligible siblings in court?"

"Of course not, Phillip. You know that Olivia's first season was this year."

"I do," he continued, nodding as if to coax her along to his point. "So, it is my theory, then, that you gained these skills while you yourself were fighting off suitors with your bare hands."

"What do you mean?"

"You have spent these last many years trying not to be married."

Marina's cheeks burned crimson, but she did not correct him.

"So that is it, isn't it?" Phillip mused. "I have wondered. It was something you said to your sister that first made me suspicious. I'm flattered, really."

"You're flattered?"

"Well, you must have gone to quite some length to get rid of the men at your door when you were younger. But you married me after very little deliberation."

"I will remind you that it was my father who agreed to your proposal, not I. Like you said, we're courting now. I have yet to approve of you as my husband in any official capacity."

Phillip held his hands to his chest as if he had been struck by a sword, and Marina laughed. He got up and moved around the table to lean back against it next to where she sat. He reached up and tucked a stray curl behind her ear.

"Then what will it take for me to gain your approval, Your Grace?"

"I have already told you, Your Grace. I ask merely that you make more regular appearances at mealtimes so that I might get to know your delightful sense of humor better."

"Then that I shall."