Chapter 2

Chapter Two

“ T hat’s your wife?” Alexandra’s harasser asked the Duke, venom lacing every word. “Ha! I don’t know which of you is more unfortunate.”

Alexandra bristled at the comment but knew that there was some truth to it. Her marriage was purely a financial arrangement. What kind of people would agree to that?

“You don’t want to ask me that question again, Percy!”

Oliver looked different. He seemed angrier and more muscular. How long had it been? She had not seen him since their wedding a day—a year ago—and now, with his broader shoulders and intense eyes, he looked both familiar and strange.

Tonight, she was seeing him with new eyes. She reached for her throat and felt her quickening pulse.

“It’s only because I’m in a gambling hell,” she whispered to herself. “Your Grace, you do not have to do that. Let us leave,” she then implored, finally finding her voice.

As soon as her husband turned to her, two burly men rushed to crowd him.

Alexandra screamed as one man swung a fist at Oliver’s face.

Oliver ducked. How could a large man like him move so gracefully? The young Duchess felt hot and cold, and it had nothing to do with the temperature of the establishment.

The lights in the gambling hell flickered like her feelings, swaying between fear and something more difficult to understand. The feeling made her heart race and her palms sweat.

Her husband took off his tailcoat and cravat. His muscles bunched under his shirt as he did little jumps to his left and right, his body coiled tightly like a spring. The thugs watched the movement, their bodies tense and ready. The three circled each other momentarily, waiting for one to attack.

And one of them did.

One thug landed a punch on Oliver’s jaw. Alexandra’s hands flew to her mouth, and she let out a breath only when she saw her husband recover and rub his jaw in disbelief, as if he was more annoyed than injured.

The crowd cheered. Money was being exchanged on the sidelines. The fight spurred a new kind of game—betting. The gambling hell was alive again, and she saw Lockwood grinning in the corner.

“Five pounds on the Anvil!”

“No, he can take on both. Ten pounds!”

Alexandra could not believe what she was hearing. The crowd seemed to have a nickname for Oliver, and with the telltale bruise near his temple, it looked like he had already been in a fight before he arrived at the gambling hell.

“Let your wife pay her father’s debts, Your Grace!” someone taunted, and the room erupted in raucous laughter, both men and women.

The Duke let out a growl. Then, he lunged at the man who punched him, using his towering height and bigger size to intimidate him.

The other man backed away, and even the other thug looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there. A glance from their master rooted them to the spot.

Despite their near-retreat, Oliver lunged at one of them and hit him square in the jaw. Using his other fist, he landed another punch on the man’s gut. With a quick swerve, he avoided the fist of the other thug.

It was enough to make the two thugs to retreat. They were not used to having someone fight them like that.

With both of them staggering backward, Oliver faced the instigator once more. The man looked pale and small before him, but he also knew how to get his way.

“Come and fight me, Percy. Nobody touches my wife and just leaves the fight,” Oliver taunted, extending his right arm and curling his fingers in a beckoning gesture.

“You never showed interest in your wife before. I suspect they are right. You don’t want her. Why fight for someone you leave behind all the time, Westgrave? Let her pay her father’s debts.”

The malicious tone and wide grin made Alexandra’s stomach churn. She could guess what Percy was insinuating, and it had nothing to do with her playing card games in a dimly lit hall.

She saw a figure fleeing out of the corner of her left eye.

Her father. Of course.

She turned her attention back to the two red-faced men. Her husband was barely sweating, but he was breathing hard from anger. Percy, on the other hand, looked paler with each step Oliver took toward him.

“He is not worth it, Your Grace,” Alexandra said, daring to reach for her husband.

She placed her hand on his shoulder. He started, even though her touch was gentle. A tingling feeling spread from her fingertips to the rest of her body.

Percy looked at them mockingly, and Oliver responded by shoving his face close to the other man’s and snapping it back in warning.

When Percy finally cowered away, the Duke let out a long-suffering sigh. He bent to the floor to pick up his tailcoat and cravat as his wife watched him with interest.

“We are not done, Duchess,” he warned, grabbing her by the arm.

He had only said her name once before, and it was only for show.

With the bored onlookers going back to their games, they did not have an audience. The smell of meat seemed to have grown stronger as the patrons ordered food—fuel for more hours of gambling.

“Do you really think that violence can pay off my father’s debts?”

The Duke’s face softened, and he released her arm, his thumb ghosting over the skin through the fabric of her dress. It was almost like he was afraid that he had hurt her.

“Let us talk outside. You know I am not going to hurt you.”

Alexandra bit back a retort. The truth was that she never thought him capable of raising a hand at her.

“What were you thinking, Duchess?” he demanded as soon as they were outside Devil’s Draw. “Coming to a gambling hell without an escort? Even an escort would not dare walk through those doors!”

“I had to save my father!” Her voice was just as heated, but she could also hear how it sounded.

“Your father is beyond saving.”

His response echoed her thoughts, but she was still fuming. Her husband should not have intervened. He made her look like a damsel in distress.

“And you? Are you beyond saving, too? Do not hide the fact that your face already had bruises when you came charging in.”

“That is none of your business.”

Oliver’s face had shuttered. He was shutting her out, and it was not in the least bit surprising. They had never made the effort to get to know each other. As soon as they got married, he dumped her in a country house not too far from London but far enough away from him.

“You are right. I am your wife in name only. I should not care about your business,” Alexandra huffed bitterly.

She turned to walk away, catching sight of her carriage waiting for her across the street.

Her carriage? No, it was another of Oliver’s gifts to her, together with the lovely country house she adored despite the circumstances.

“Where did you get the money you gave to Lockwood?”

“That is not your business either.”

“It made you visit an establishment that a high-born lady like you should not venture into without any friends or a husband. I digress. It is not a place you should go to for any reason, with or without an escort.”

“Why do you care, Your Grace? You’ve barely acknowledged me since our wedding!”

“You’re my wife—that is enough reason. A wife who still has not revealed where she gets her money from.”

“Are you anxious to know how I spend the pin money you’ve left me? I have not touched the bank account, and the banknotes you gave me are still in the lockbox at home. Even if I had taken the money and added it to what I earned, it would still not be enough.”

“Not enough?”

Oliver was right to be confused. He had left her two thousand pounds. Alexandra thought one thousand pounds was more than enough, but she was wrong. Her father had bigger debts than she had expected. He was more addicted to gambling than she had initially thought, and that was a frightening thing. The man was on the road to self-destruction.

“Yes. You heard me right. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Your Grace. The carriage you have generously gifted me is waiting.”

“Let him drive home. I will take you in mine.”

“No. I cannot let your coachman wait for me in vain,” she huffed, before striding toward the carriage.

This time, Oliver did not argue or stop her. He simply followed her. She saw what he meant to do too late and gaped at the coins he placed in the coachman’s palm as he ordered him to leave.

“You can’t do that, Your Grace,” she protested.

“How did you get the money, and why did you not just use the money I left you?”

“I have my ways, too,” Alexandra blurted, suddenly flustered by the way her husband was looking at her.

His green eyes seemed to pierce through her soul, and she felt the bewildering urge to stroke his well-trimmed beard, which could not hide the scar on the seam of his lower lip or the blooming bruise on his jaw.

“What ways?” Oliver asked sharply as he handed her into his carriage.

The well-trained coachman merely nodded and duffed his hat. Then, he discreetly turned his gaze to the horses.

“Yes! Do you also think I’m a brainless chit? Of course, I have ways, too.”

As soon as the words were out, Alexandra regretted them. She didn’t want to reveal too much of her feelings—how her father’s words affected her.

“You believe that, Duchess?” Oliver asked with a frown. When there was no response, he muttered, “Fine. Believe whatever you want.”

Husband and wife fumed silently throughout the short journey, but Alexandra could not help but feel something else.

Oliver was sitting too close, and she was a woman who had never been with a man—not even her own husband.