Chapter 8

CHAPTER8

Isabella was reeling, unsure what to say or think.

He wants nothing from me.

Something curdled in her stomach, and her hands loosened from their folded position. She took hold of her skirt and crumpled it beneath her palms.

Nothing…

In her mind, she saw the night they had first met when they had danced together. The excitement the Duke had caused in her that night had always stayed with her, yet it seemed that thrill was never something to be indulged in.

The idea of marrying a rake might have worried her over the last few days, but she’d be lying to herself to say she hadn’t been curious as to what sharing his bed might have been like. The comments from their night in the garden and all the flirtation had resulted in a tension and a burning curiosity.

Now, I will never know what it will be like to share His Grace’s bed. No, to share Henry’s bed.

His name had felt strange on her tongue. It brought an intimacy into their relationship that he was already rejecting.

“You are blunt. I suppose I should be thankful for your candidness.”

Isabella turned away from him. At that moment, staring at his handsome face was only painful. It was a reminder that the fair face hid a heart that could be as dark as night.

Is that who he really is? Is he so dark of heart that he would marry me and then keep his mistresses anyway?

“Speaking of being candid, come this way.” He beckoned her forwards.

She followed him through a doorway and into a front room.

Isabella stumbled on the threshold, for her eyes were so busy taking in the parlor. It was a grand room indeed. Where many people’s parlors were small and snug affairs, offering comfort and coziness, this one was ostentatious, with furniture that announced wealth rather than warmth at all. The fireplace was ornate with carvings in the mantelpiece, and the walls were either paneled or covered in ancient-looking portraits.

“Cold, isn’t it?” Henry asked her. “That is another thing we should discuss. If this is to be your home too, then you should be comfortable here. Change anything in this house you wish to. The housekeeper will help you.”

He walked on suddenly, passing all the furniture and heading to a door in the far wall.

Isabella hurried after him, almost tripping on one of the chair legs, for she was too busy looking around her.

“You have no love for this house?” she asked in quick realization.

“You can change it to anything you see fit.”

Henry didn’t look at her as he spoke. There was an iciness between them now, a coldness that hadn’t even been there that night in the garden.

Who are you really, Henry?

Before, she had thought him two completely different men in one. Now, she was beginning to wonder how many different versions of him there were.

The skilled dancer with the charismatic smile, the rake with flirtatious comments, or the cold husband… Is he all of them?

They walked into another room, this one dotted with so many suits of armor that they glistened in the sunlight.

“Are you certain this isn’t a castle?” Isabella murmured, nearly bumping into Henry.

He reached out and caught her arm, keeping her standing straight. Such heat passed through that touch that she avoided looking him in the eye.

“This room was once the grand hall. It is in the oldest part of the house. My father used it for balls and grand dinners. It hasn’t been used for a long time.” He shook his head and looked away from the suits of armor, beckoning her on.

She followed him, heading towards what was a more modern part of the house. They walked through a music room full of instruments and then entered a dining room, where the oak table was so long that an immense crowd of people could be fitted around it.

“Now, let us talk about finances.”

“You seem to be rattling through these subjects,” Isabella observed, stopping at the foot of the table that was to be her new place.

Henry went to the head and stood behind his chair, leaning over the backrest.

“I am.”

He held her gaze. For a brief second, Isabella was looking at the man she had seen in that garden. He was staring at her as if they were discussing something more than money.

“As I said, I have no need of your dowry, so you can do what you like with it.”

“Completely?”

“Completely,” he confirmed with a sharp nod.

“Good.” She mirrored his position, leaning over the back of her chair. “Then I would like to make something clear myself. I do not want any money, anything of mine or yours, to go to my father.” She could see the surprise right away. His eyebrows shot up, softening the harshness of his features. “Not a single shilling.”

“Curious,” he said quietly and tilted his head to the side. He examined her so intensely that she shifted her weight between her feet, uncertain if she liked that look or not. “Why is that?”

“He cannot be trusted with it,” Isabella said in a rush. “I do not wish him to have anything, but I’d like my dowry to go to my sisters’ dowries. That way, they can still hope to make good matches themselves. My dowry was initially supposed to be more, Your Grace. I do not wish my father to whittle away their money the way he has done mine.”

“Henry.”

“What?”

“You called me ‘Your Grace,’ again.” His expression was a serious one. “As I said, call me Henry.” She nodded, feeling strange at the intimate air that was between them. “Money is no issue, Bella. If you wish to give your money to your sisters and more of our own, then you can.”

“Are you certain?” Isabella raised herself off the chair in alarm. “You would not even make me ask for it? Good Lord! In my last home, I had to beg for money.”

“Beg?” He chuckled softly, then shook his head. “Begging doesn’t suit you.”

“Suit me?” She was flummoxed at the idea and rounded the table, walking towards him. “What does that mean?”

“It means…” He paused and waited for her to reach his side before he folded his arms. “I will not have my wife begging me for money. Besides, if I try to imagine you begging…” He hesitated and tilted his head to the side, his eyes traveling down her gown. Her breath hitched at that look, for she wondered what he was thinking. “I imagine you begging for something else rather than money.” When his eyes tarried on her gown, her lips parted in shock.

“You are vile,” she hissed. “You want your wife to beg for you to share her bed, is that it?”

He chuckled and stepped away, walking around the table. She hurried to follow behind him, shocked at his audacity.

“You’d be surprised what power it can have over a man to see a lady begging for his touches, Bella.” The words sent a shiver through her. She wasn’t sure if she feared what he meant or longed to know more of what he was insinuating. “Yet, as I said,” he continued, glancing over his shoulder at her, “I will not touch you. Therefore, do not even think about begging.”

He opened another door and continued with their tour. Isabella followed a little slower now, unable to understand why disappointment made her palms clammy.

Even if I begged, he would not touch me… I’m powerless. Will I never know what the thrill of a man’s touch could be like?

Henry showed her another couple of rooms before he came to a stop in the hall. He rang a bell and waited.

“I will introduce you to the housekeeper, Mrs. Walters, then I will leave you to get settled in your chamber.” He looked over her shoulder, showing no interest at all in talking to her anymore.

“That’s it?” she asked in amazement. “Am I being dismissed from your sight, now to live a meek and mild life hidden away in the rooms of this house where you will not see me?”

“I do not expect you to live like a mouse.”

“That feels very much like what is being described to me.”

“You misunderstand.” His gaze flicked back towards her. “As we are to live with one another, I want you to be happy. Yet, we will live as separate lives as we both wished to from the outset. Neither of us wished to marry at all, least of all each other, remember?”

Isabella froze, for she heard the sound of a door opening and closing further down the corridor. Mrs. Walters was clearly hurrying towards them. Isabella only had time to say one more thing before their privacy would be disturbed.

“No, neither of us wished to be married, but perhaps I hoped my husband would be a friend to me, rather than insist we remain strangers.”

Her words had a sudden effect. His lips flattened, and his brow furrowed so much his temple wrinkled. It affected that handsome face almost more than any other expression she had seen on him, but he didn’t get a chance to reply to her.

Mrs. Walters was suddenly beside them.

“Mrs. Walters, may I introduce my wife, Isabella, the new Duchess of Sutterton.” Henry’s introduction had Isabella’s mouth turning dry.

Good Lord, I am a duchess now.

“Your Grace, I am delighted to meet you.”

Mrs. Walters was a slender and short lady, though her wide hands that were clasped in front of her showed she was a woman who was used to hard work. Her face was fair, and in her youth, she must have been a beauty. The auburn hair that was beginning to grey was tucked up into a neat chignon.

“I am pleased to meet you too, Mrs. Walters.” Isabella bobbed a curtsy in return.

“It is so long since we’ve had female company in this house,” Mrs. Walters said with a giggle. “I shall be able to decorate the house with flowers again.”

“I’d like that.” Isabella was fond of Mrs. Walters at once. Her smile was a broad one, and she stepped forwards, eager to please.

“I have your chamber all ready for you. I even asked the lady’s maid to prepare a bath in case you wanted one after the wedding…”

As Mrs. Walters continued welcoming Isabella warmly, the Duchess grew aware of Henry taking his leave.

He didn’t say goodbye. He simply walked away and opened a door that Isabella hadn’t seen. He offered no smile, no parting wave, though in the doorway he hesitated and looked back at her. There was something in the keenness of that stare she could not understand.

I do not think I know him truly at all.

* * *

Henry knocked the glass of brandy back, letting the burning feeling travel down his throat. It had proved a good way to distract himself tonight, even if drinking wasn’t usually how he liked to indulge in pleasure.

“I will not go,” Henry muttered aloud and reached for the decanter beside him to refill his glass.

He was sitting at his desk in his study. After his father had died, he’d ordered a redecoration of this one room so he would not so easily be reminded of his father when he sat here. The desk was a rather plain one, made of oak, with the occasional glass and brass inkwell scattered across the top. The silver tray beside him often presented him with open decanters, though he didn’t always drink.

But tonight, he needed that brandy.

“No matter what the temptation, I will not go,” he muttered aloud again, somehow hopeful that if he kept repeating the words, they’d have control over him.

Bella.

His mind kept going back to his wife, who had long retired for the night. She had driven him mad all day, though she plainly had no knowledge of it. That fine wedding gown had hugged her curves perfectly, taunting him with images of what could play out between the two of them.

It didn’t seem to matter how distant or cold he had been with her that day, his mind kept returning to the night in the garden, where she had fallen on top of him and ended up straddling him. That look in her eyes, the hitching of her breath… it brought such pictures to his mind that it was as intoxicating as the liquor in his grasp.

He could picture Isabella being in this room with him now. Introducing such a lady to pleasure, he would be slow. First, he’d lay her on his desk, knocking away all the inkwells, just so he could lay her flat and bring the skirt of that wedding gown around her hips. He’d gather the cream and golden material, pulling tightly at it. He wouldn’t care if he ripped it. God, he’d even rip it from her body if it meant getting closer to her faster.

He’d delight her with his hand first, watching her first realization of what pleasure was. When he had her dithering on his desk, begging for more, her hands clutching the wood beneath her, then he would enter her. With their bodies joined as one, he’d ride out her pleasure on the desk, driving her into oblivion not once, but twice, before he found his own release.

“God damn it.”

Henry lowered the glass to the desk with a heavy thud. Some of the golden liquid dripped over the rim, and he wiped it away with the sleeve of his shirt, before rolling the sleeve up to his elbow.

I have to stop thinking about her. I vowed I would not touch her.

Sitting back in his chair, he looked at the one thing he kept of his father in this room. It was a vast portrait on the wall opposite him. Gregory Arnold’s face stared back at him. The heavy features were almost haggard, for the painting was completed when he was older, though Henry knew even then the painter had been kind. There were no pockmarks on his father’s face, and the hair wasn’t as grey as it should have been.

The painter was too eager to flatter my father’s ego.

He kept the painting there as a staunch reminder of his vow. He would not sire an heir. The dukedom had to die with him.

That means I cannot bed her.

“Well, I could.”

The words had him cursing and reaching for another brandy, pouring it out fast. Henry wasn’t so much a fool that he didn’t know how to be with a woman without risking a child, yet he feared what the temptation of Isabella would do to him. It was always a risk, and then he would have broken his vow.

He downed his glass of brandy, grasped the one candle that had been keeping him company and hurried out of the study. He moved so fast that the candle flame flickered and the wax stick wobbled. Upon reaching the stairs, he walked up slowly, constantly wondering what he was doing, yet his addled brain seemed to have taken over.

I’m not thinking clearly. I’m thinking of one thing only…

That image of Isabella on his desk came back to him. He pictured the moment he would enter her and what her face would look like. Would those high cheekbones blush a deep shade of red? Would those dark green eyes, the color of stormy oceans, stare up at him? Or would they be half-lidded with her pleasure?

“Enough,” he whispered to himself as he traipsed the corridors.

Rather than ending up at his chamber door, he found Isabella’s instead. He hovered outside her room, with his candle in his grasp, neither reaching for the door nor moving away.

Why am I here?

He couldn’t answer his own question and didn’t seek to. He just continued to stand there, wondering what he would do next.

Closing his eyes so he shut out the light of the candle, he tried to think back to the first night he’d ever seen Isabella. Since John had reminded him of the dance he’d shared with her, the memory had kept returning.

Isabella had been announced at her debut, and she had walked down a set of steps on the arm of her father. She had been striking in her different beauty and astonishingly tall in the way that meant many looked at her, agog. Henry had stood at the bottom of those steps, his eyes tracing her long limbs, feeling an instant attraction.

One dance, just one.

When he’d built up the courage to ask her, for back then, he had little experience with ladies and was not so confident, her face had lit up with her smile. Those bold eyes had crinkled a little with her smile as he drew her towards the dance floor, and her gloved fingers had wrapped around his palm.

The sound of the door opening had Henry’s eyes shooting open. Before he could even think of moving away, Isabella stepped out of her chamber.

Wearing nothing but her nightgown, with her cinnamon-colored hair loose around her shoulders, she turned and walked straight into him.

“God’s wounds!” she exclaimed, falling against him.

Her hands were splayed across his waistcoat as his one free hand came up to grab her waist, holding her there so that she did not fall over.