Chapter 23

CHAPTER 23

T here was a long pause after Martha and Kitty had left. Long after the echo of the door clicking shut had died down, Theo kept his back turned to Anna, his shoulders tense and lifted around his ears.

She had intended to wait until he spoke first, but the quiet dragged resolutely on, and it became obvious that Theo would wait until doomsday before speaking.

“What happened seven years ago?” Anna asked again. Her voice was overloud in the silent dining room.

“A great many things, I should imagine,” Theo shot back, his lip curling. “Kitty was born, for one.”

“That scandal sheet was hinting at something. You said yourself that they are often accurate. The truth will get out, you know. Mama always used to say that. How accurate was that remark?”

He turned abruptly, striding over to the table. Gathering up handfuls of the scandal sheets, Theodore crumpled them into a big ball and strode back to the fire. He stuffed in sheet after sheet of thick paper until the fire was stuttering and smoking, and the stench of burning newsprint filled the room.

“You’ll put out the fire if you go on like that,” Anna remarked, but Theo didn’t even flinch. “I can tell you now that your behavior only makes it more clear that something is up. You’re hiding something.”

“That remark,” Theo ground out at last, “should never have appeared in print. I’m deeply curious to know how the author of that particular journal heard such a comment. I think I shall have to conduct my own enquiries.”

He turned back to the table to get more scandal sheets, oblivious to the guttering fire. Anna slapped her hand down on top of the journals, forcing him to look at her.

“What happened?” she repeated. “I’ll keep asking, you know. Whatever scandal you’re afraid of, it can’t be anything too bad, can it? Did you murder someone?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Well, why can’t you tell me? You didn’t turn a hair at Henry’s revelation, and you saw that I didn’t either. You can trust me.”

He let out a bark of laughter. “My dear, I trust no one. You’d be wise to follow my example.”

That stung.

Anna blinked, loosening her grip enough to allow Theo to snatch the scandal sheets out from under her palm. In a flash, he was back at the fire, stuffing more paper into the flames. As she’d anticipated, the fire gave a smoky sort of cough and died.

Theo cursed under his breath, picked up the poker, and began angrily stirring up the embers. Pieces of half-burned paper came fluttering out of the fireplace, caught on unseen breezes and drafts.

“I am not prying into your business out of idle curiosity,” she snapped, standing up as straight as she could. A duchess wouldn’t shrink nervously in front of anyone, not even her own husband. Especially not her own husband. “I am trying to tell you that I care about you. I care about you, and I care about Kitty.”

“What about my reputation and my title?” he spat, not looking at her. “Do you care about that?”

“Well, of course I do! Maybe… maybe not as much as other things, but…”

That was the wrong thing to say.

Theo rounded on her. “Anna, I am telling you to drop this matter. It doesn’t concern you.”

She fought back a groan of frustration. “But it does concern me! Can’t you see? I don’t want to know this sort of thing because I’m a gossip, but because it’s my family we’re talking about!”

“Barely.”

She flinched at that. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

Theo straightened up from his feverish task, at last. His eyes were glittering, and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead. In the newly revived flames, which were now licking up the chimney, his face was thrown into an odd, fiery shadow.

He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

“It means that you are overstepping your boundaries, Duchess,” he said, his voice low and menacing.

“But… but I thought…”

He turned to face her. Even though he took no steps in her direction, Anna found herself edging backward.

“You thought what?” Theo said, his voice cool and even. “You thought what, exactly, Anna?”

She swallowed. The facade of a calm and regal duchess was quickly cracking, and she found herself faced with reality.

A girl out of her depth.

“I thought that… that after last night…” she trailed off, not quite able to look Theo in the eyes.

He didn’t laugh, which was a mercy, but the taut pause said enough.

“What was it that you thought, then?” he said, betraying no emotion. “As I recall, it was in our little contract, was it not? Hardly a surprise.”

She felt color rushing to her face. Stupid, girlish blushes, undermining everything she wanted to say and everything she wanted to be.

“You don’t trust me enough to open up to me,” she found herself saying, at last. “I suppose I thought that it might change.”

Theo carefully hung the poker back in its place. The metal scraped against the stone of the hearth, just enough to set Anna’s teeth on edge. The fire was burning well now, the reborn flames devouring the scandal sheets and leaving no scraps.

“Tell me, Anna, what is it you wish to hear? I’m quite at a loss. I thought we had discussed all this. I thought I made myself clear. This is a marriage of convenience, yes? We discussed all possible endings, and we agreed on a set of rules. Perhaps we have bent those rules a little more than we should have, and now we are paying the price. Let me repeat what I said. This is a marriage of convenience . Children are a necessity, and the act must be completed to achieve that. We have only done what we agreed on. What part of our relationship did you think would change?”

A lump formed in Anna’s throat. She didn’t believe she had ever felt so stupid as she had at that moment. What had she thought would change? Theo had never lied to her, never promised more than he intended to give. As he’d said earlier, she had overstepped her boundaries in more ways than one.

She’d started to believe that a serviceable friendship meant more and that sharing a bed out of necessity meant that she… that she meant more.

As if reading her thoughts, Theo heaved a sigh. “I see. I should have known. I was foolish to believe that even a clever woman like yourself could ever be content with such an arrangement. Only the coldest and most highly-bred women can submit to true marriages of convenience.”

“I know what our arrangement was,” Anna spoke up, her voice tight, “but I thought… I thought things had changed.”

Theo took a step towards her, smelling of smoke, newsprint, and burned paper. She recoiled unconsciously, and he paused.

“A marriage of convenience,” he repeated heavily. “Just because we desire each other on occasions—a fact I won’t deny—does not mean that there is something more than cool friendship between us. There is not. Desire makes things easier, but it can complicate them too, as we’re both learning now. We must still produce an heir, after all. There might be one already…” His gaze flickered down to her stomach. “But then again, there might not.”

An heir. The furtherance of his family name, of his title, of his estate. Anna was only ever a vessel for such a child, wasn’t she? Her hands crept up to her stomach, although it would be impossible to know whether she was with child or not. It was possible she was, even after one night together.

The thought only filled her with hollowness, not the joy she’d anticipated.

She licked her dry lips. “I… I see.”

Theo’s expression hardened. “Oh, you see, do you? What do you see?”

Her anger flared. “I can see that you’re exactly the same as the worst men I’ve known, the ones that call themselves gentlemen but have no claim on the name. You are the sort of man who takes what he wants, and to hell with what anybody else thinks or feels. And then, even after all that, you have the audacity to claim that you are the one who was used, that you were the one badly done by. You’re a liar and fool, Theo. I trusted you. I trusted you with my past and my future, and you threw it all back in my face.”

He flinched back as if he’d been slapped. For a split second, she thought she saw hurt in his eyes, but then it was gone, and the flat, implacable mask was back. She was sure she’d imagined it.

“How very dramatic of you,” he remarked drily. “I don’t think this little outburst changes anything, though. Do you? We are still married, and we still have to produce a little duke. Perhaps it would be best to put all of this behind us and move forward with a greater understanding of each other. What do you say?”

She swallowed reflexively. Her throat was dry, and tears pricked her eyes. Tears of anger, of frustration, and… and something else she didn’t care to name.

Nobody ever warned me that it would hurt so much.

“I think I would like to go home,” she said after a long pause, her voice quivering.

“Home?” he echoed, a flash of confusion crossing his face. It didn’t stay there long. “Ah, I see. You mean your mother’s house?”

Anna nodded, her mouth closed like a trap. If she opened her mouth now, she was afraid she would burst into tears, and they would never stop.

Theo took a step back, straightening his waistcoat. “If you like. You’re no prisoner. Go home, if you must, but remember that you are the Duchess of Langdon now, and nothing will ever change that. That includes you being my wife. Take time to compose yourself. I would be obliged if you didn’t tell the staff and Kitty why you are leaving.”

She nodded, still not daring to speak. Biting the inside of her cheek, she managed to stave off her tears for a little longer.

Theo was watching her, his gaze oddly intent and shuttered. She didn’t know what he was thinking. She never did. Once, she’d fooled herself into thinking that she did understand him, and look at where that had led. Crying over a man who’d never felt a twinge of affection for her, who did not care whether she lived with him or her mother.

Anna had almost forgotten what had started all this.

It seemed unlikely that Theo was going to speak again. He stood there, his arms limp at his sides, watching her with that inscrutable look, and Anna suddenly felt as though she could not endure another minute of it.

Turning on her heel, she strode out of the room, leaving the door ajar. There were no footmen or servants in the hallway, for which she was relieved. Pressing a hand to her mouth, Anna hiked up her skirts and began to race towards the stairs, keen to get up to her room before her tears spilled over.

She could have sworn she heard a step behind her, heard a strangled cry of Anna , but when she paused, one foot on the bottom step, and turned to look behind her, nobody was there.

She knew what she was hoping for. It was a foolish dream. She hoped that Theo would come running out of the dining room, his face anguished, and would fling himself at her feet and beg for forgiveness, telling her that he really did love her and he wanted them to be a proper husband and wife, not that grubby little marriage of convenience business.

It was beyond silly, really. The fantasy of a woman—no, a girl —who didn’t understand the way the world worked and what she had gotten herself into.

It might be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.

The tears spilled over at last, hot and sticky, and she wiped them away angrily, climbing the stairs two at a time.

I don’t need him . He said that I’m a duchess and nothing can change that. Well, good! I’ll act like one. I’ll do what I want and will not think twice about any of it, or about what it might do to others.

Bursting into her room, she tore a piece of paper out of her writing desk, a note that Timmins could send and have delivered within the hour.

Dear Mama, she began. I am coming to see you…