Chapter 14

Fourteen

“ W hat business do you have with me, Your Grace?” Lord Rochford asked, as they walked along the hallway that led to the front door. His tone was clipped and businesslike, even bored. “I was under the impression that ever since you decided to close down your father’s business, we have nothing more to discuss.”

“You will be compensated for your shares in the company,” Thomas said. “So you have nothing to worry about.”

He was speaking automatically, not really thinking through his words. This was not what he actually wanted to discuss with Rochford. But he couldn’t say anything until he knew they were out of earshot of his wife.

Rochford’s words were still burning in his ears: Isn’t this what you have always told people you wanted? A passionate affair? Well, I can give you that, Cherie.

And while Thomas was relieved his wife had so vehemently denied the earl, he still couldn’t rid himself of the raging jealousy and fury that currently consumed every inch of him.

Rochford, however, seemed unaware of the danger he was in, because he said coldly, “I was hoping to watch the business grow and expand for many years. At the price you are buying them for now, they are hardly worth more than when I got them. Not much return for a business that should have brought profits for years to come.”

Thomas glared at his cousin. The weasel had never created anything of his own; he had only ever wanted to profit off of Thomas’s and his father’s work. And now he had the audacity to be angry he could no longer reap unearned rewards from it?!

It was exactly what he’d tried to do with Cherie: steal something that didn’t belong to him, because it was easier than trying to build something himself.

“You are free to invest the money you get from the shares into your own business,” Thomas snapped. “But I will not keep an exploitative, unethical business afloat for years to come on the opposite side of the world, because you feel that you didn’t make enough money from it.”

Rochford didn’t respond, but the look on his face told Thomas that the earl had many unsavory responses he would like to make to this.

“Let us not discuss this here,” Thomas said, and he ushered Rochford into his study. “I do not want to bother my wife with the difficulties of our business affairs.”

“You don’t seem particularly interested in bothering your wife in any way,” Rochford sneered, as he followed him into the study. The insinuation was not lost on Thomas.

He didn’t respond right away. Instead, he walked around to the back of his desk, so that the portrait he had commissioned upon the death of his father and his ascent to the duchy was right behind him. As much as Thomas didn’t always feel worthy of being the Duke of Wheaton, right now, he wanted the full power of his dukedom behind him.

“Speaking of my wife,” he began, in a cold, clear voice, “from now on, you will stay away from her.”

Rochford’s expression clouded slightly, and he stared at Thomas for a long time, saying nothing. The tension in the room built between them, electric current prickling, like the air before a lightning storm.

“Your wife is my relative now,” Rochford said at last. “There is no way I can stay away from her.”

“There is a way,” Thomas snarled, “and that way includes never coming to my home again, never speaking to my wife when you see her in public—in fact, never even looking at her. If you see her at a ball, you will turn and walk in the other direction. If you pass her on the street, you will look straight ahead and not make eye contact. If she tries to speak to you, you will become deaf.”

Rochford laughed. It was a cold, harsh laugh. “What are you so afraid of, Your Grace? Is my speaking to your wife really such a threat to your marriage?”

“Of course not,” Thomas said, too quickly. He knew what Rochford was doing, how he was trying to manipulate him, but he couldn’t help the fury that raged through him.

“Then why the defensiveness? If you were truly secure in the relationship, then there would be no need for any of this.”

“I HEARD YOU!” Thomas shouted. His temper, which he had been so much better at controlling ever since the death of his father, but which still lingered so close to the surface, suddenly burst from him. He slammed his fist down on his desk, knocking over one of the bottles of ink that was sitting on it. “I heard what you proposed to her! An affair?! Are you really so presumptuous, so disrespectful to me and my title, that you would try to seduce my wife in my own home?!”

Rochford didn’t look nearly as sorry as he should have. He merely raised an eyebrow.

“From what I can tell, the lady is in need of seduction. And if you will not do it, someone should.”

“DO NOT SPEAK OF MY WIFE LIKE THAT!”

“Get control of your temper, Your Grace,” Rochford snapped. “Affairs of this nature are normal among the peerage. What is not normal is for a duke to fail in his duty to produce an heir. Or to show no interest in producing one.”

“I don’t believe I’ve shown a single sign of being uninterested in my wife,” Thomas snapped. “And my marriage is none of your business.”

“But it is my business,” Rochford said, leaning forward. “If you do not produce an heir, then I will inherit the dukedom. So, by all means, leave her to her lonely fate.”

“Why do you think I am not trying for an heir?” Thomas snarled. Then a terrible thought struck him. “Did my wife—did she say that?”

But it was the wrong thing to say. From the look of triumph that dawned on Rochford’s face, it was clear that if before he hadn’t been sure, now he was.

Comprehension also began to dawn on Thomas. He must have spoken to my father. He told Rochford something—maybe not the whole truth, but enough for Rochford to suspect that I do not want to continue my line.

Was that why he was here, speaking to Cherie? Was he trying to get information out of her to confirm his suspicions?

Although, in the end, it was Thomas who had given him the information he sought.

The earl reached into his jacket pocket and produced a pocket watch, which he glanced at.

“Unfortunately, I must go,” he said, putting away the pocket watch. “But this conversation has been most… illuminating.” He turned and went to the door. Thomas didn’t move. He was frozen by horror at what he had revealed.

When Rochford was at the door, he hesitated, then turned back around to face Thomas.

“I will do as you say,” he said, “and stay away from your wife. She’s a stubborn, tiresome woman anyway, and upon closer acquaintance, not the kind of lady I am interested in pursuing. But I should warn you, Your Grace: there will be others who are interested. Others who are more successful than I am at swaying her. Because if you are not attentive, if you leave her alone in your marriage, then she will seek out the companionship of others.”

Thomas felt as if he was going to be sick. Of course, he knew that Rochford was right. Cherie was a beautiful, intelligent, charming woman. Many men would want her, and while her loyalty to him did her credit, it would be naive to think that she would remain loyal to him forever when he could not give her a normal marriage.

She deserves a normal marriage , the voice in his head said. She deserves to be loved.

He had heard Rochford say these same words in the parlor, as he’d stood outside of it, listening to their conversation with a growing sense of anger. Now, though, he felt more dread than anything else. And while Rochford had only been saying them to manipulate Cherie, they were true. She deserved the whole world.

Far more than you can give her.

“Now you’re encouraging me to have an heir?” he spat at Rochford. “Your strategy makes no sense, my lord.”

But Rochford merely smiled. “I’m merely reminding you of what your father always knew, and what he told me shortly before he died: that you are not good enough. For anyone. Either this dukedom or your wife.”

The words cut like a spear through Thomas’s heart. He could hear his father, once again, rasping on his deathbed: You are a disappointment. The same words he’d been saying his whole life. And the other ones; the ones that would haunt him for the rest of his life; the ones that had made him such a disappointment to his wife.

Does Rochford know? Did Father tell him on his deathbed, like he told me?

But if Rochford knew, he wouldn’t be playing with Thomas and Cherie like this. He would have brought him down by now. So, he didn’t know, but perhaps he just suspected.

Either way, enough was enough.

Thomas drew himself up. Rochford had been here long enough, twisting his mind in directions he didn’t want it to go, manipulating his wife.

“Get out of my house,” he snarled, his voice low but deadly. “And I never want to see you here again. In future, if you have business to discuss with me, you will send a solicitor to do it for me. I never want to see you or hear your voice ever again. Is that understood?”

Rochford merely smiled. “I will get out of your house if that is what you wish. But only until it is no longer your house. Don’t forget, until you produce an heir, this will be my house in due course. And by then, your wife will be free for the taking.”

And he turned and left the study, leaving Thomas shaking with rage.