Chapter 10

After the confrontation of the night before, Arthur didn’t expect to see Isabella at breakfast. He was surprised, then, to come downstairs and find that she was already at the table. She’d beaten him there and had helped herself to eggs and sausage.

She didn’t look up when he arrived. “Good morning,” she said.

“Good morning,” he said cautiously, feeling strangely as though he didn’t want to provoke her. He didn’t enjoy the feeling. This was his house, after all, and he shouldn’t have been worrying about provoking a lady who had been here less than a day.

She was so impressive to him, though. The way she had come down to breakfast as if she owned the place, taken her seat at the table, and started to eat. She hadn’t waited for him to give her permission. Last night’s altercation had had the opposite effect of what he had expected. It hadn’t cowed her at all—it had emboldened her.

“Did you sleep well, Your Grace?” she asked.

And really, that was taking things a bit far. He understood that she had been frustrated with him last night, but were they going to go on like this? “I’ve asked you to call me Arthur,” he reminded her.

Now she did look up at him, setting down her knife and fork in order to meet his gaze. “I know what you asked me to do,” she said.

“Are you refusing to comply?”

“Have I ever refused to give you what you wanted?”

“You mean, other than the very first time we ever met?”

She planted her hands on her hips. “I don’t know that you can count it as me refusing to marry you when we’re currently married,” she said. “I think at this point, Your Grace, you need to concede that I did give you what you wanted on that occasion.”

“Only because you saw that you were going to get something out of it yourself. It isn’t as if you married me out of any desire to grant me my wish.”

“And is that what you want? A lady who marries you, not because she herself has any reason or desire to do so, but simply because she wants to please you?” There was a fire in her eyes, that same fire that had so intrigued him upon their first meeting. “If that was what you wanted, Your Grace, then I’m not the only one who made a mistake entering into this arrangement.”

“Do you truly think that you made a mistake?” he asked her.

“How could I possibly think otherwise? I still don’t know what you want from me or why you brought me here. It’s alarming not having those answers.”

“And if I answer your questions, you’ll do as I ask?”

“I’m not making such an open-ended promise,” she said. “I know you think me a fool?—”

“I don’t think you a fool.”

“Good, because I’m not a fool. If you want a pledge from me that I will do as you ask, you must tell me before I give my word what you’re going to ask. Otherwise, I offer you no such promise.”

“You’re very clever,” he observed.

“I had to be. Perhaps you’re used to ladies who were taken care of all their lives, but as for me, I always had to care for myself. I couldn’t count on anyone to have my best interests in mind. My father was my greatest rival, and if I wasn’t cautious about dealing with the people around me, I would have found myself in a great deal of trouble a lot more often than I did.”

Arthur nodded. “I can be specific with you if it puts you at ease,” he said. “In this case, the only promise I’m asking you to make is to call me by my first name. I don’t wish to have a wife who addresses me by my title.”

“It’s unclear what kinds of things you do want your wife to do,” Isabella argued.

Arthur had never anticipated a conversation like the one they were having now. He supposed he had known that he would have to explain to her that they weren’t going to have a conventional marriage, that they were never going to touch one another or share a bed or produce an heir. But he had assumed that she would accept that. After all, what else could she do about it?

She didn’t seem upset or grieved by what he had told her. Instead, Arthur had the impression that she was frustrated by the fact that she had been dealt with dishonestly. Truth be told, he didn’t blame her. He wouldn’t like it if he had entered into a marriage under false pretenses either.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll talk about it.”

“Just tell me why you married me,” she said. “You seemed so eager to do it. I suppose I’m at fault for assuming that I understood what you wanted out of it. I do think that my assumption was fairly reasonable, though. It still seems logical to me to think that you would have wanted to marry in order to produce an heir. If it isn’t that, what is your reason? I know you aren’t in love with me.”

She said this so matter-of-factly, as if there was no way it could be challenged, and for a moment, Arthur felt as if the Earth had given way beneath him.

Of course, I’m not in love with her. So why did it feel as if she had said something so wild, so drastic? Why did he feel such an urge to stand up and contradict her? It made no sense, and he forced the urge into submission.

Still, looking at her, he couldn’t deny the strange excitement he felt. For so long, his life had been about one thing and one thing only. The only thing that had brought him any excitement at all had been potential news about his parents’ killer, and that was a cold and unpleasant sort of excitement. Being with Isabella was different. Sitting here with her—even though they were arguing—made him feel youthful and full of energy in a way he had very nearly forgotten he was able to feel at all. It was amazing that he could come up with these feelings now, when so much time had gone by—when he had truly believed that all he had left was his mission of revenge.

No, he wasn’t in love with her. He was sure of that, if only because falling in love had never been a part of his plan, and if there was one thing that mattered to Arthur, it was sticking to his plans.

But he did feel something for her. Even though almost no time had gone by in their marriage so far, he already couldn’t bear the thought that he might have married someone else. He was already deeply grateful to her for the silly lie that had brought them together. How terrible it would have been if he had found himself in this situation with someone else—someone who didn’t spice up his mornings and show him a good time each day the way she did.

He owed her an explanation, and he knew it. “I married you because I needed a duchess,” he explained. “Not because I needed an heir. I don’t need an heir, and I don’t want one, but I do need people to stop asking me when I mean to marry and why I haven’t done so already. I need people to stop trying to arrange for their daughters to meet me.”

“You can’t have faced very much of that,” she argued. “No one ever sees you.”

“People don’t see me often,” he corrected. “They do see me. I can’t go into a business meeting without finding myself face-to-face with a man who has a daughter of the right age to marry and knows that if I only met her and saw how lovely she was…” He shook his head. “It’s a trial. I need everyone to understand that I won’t be courting their daughters, so they leave me alone. I also need them to understand that I’m reliable and capable of commitment—marriage will show them that. I don’t think it’s such a tremendous thing to ask for.”

“You married me so that you could convince everyone else to leave you alone,” she repeated.

“It had to be done.”

“You used me, then.”

“But you used me too,” he said. “You only married me to open up a pathway to success for your sister.”

“That’s true,” she agreed. “But at least I was honest with you. At least you knew before we were married exactly what I wanted out of it. Did you think that if you were honest with me, I wouldn’t agree to the arrangement?”

“You barely agreed anyway,” he pointed out.

“So, you misled me deliberately because you knew it was the only way you could get me to do what you wanted me to do.”

“I am a man who goes after the things he wants,” Arthur said firmly. “I’m sorry that I’ve disappointed you, Isabella, but that doesn’t change the fact that what I need out of this situation is someone to be my duchess. You showed yourself willing to do that when you made up a lie about the two of us, and when I came to confirm, you agreed. I’ll hold up my end of the bargain. You can count on that. I’ll make sure a match is made for your sister.”

He expected that she would flee the table the way she had run from him last night, but instead, she eyed him appraisingly.

“I hope that’s the truth,” she said at last. “You’re right. There’s only one thing you promised me when we entered into this marriage, and I would truly hate to discover that you’re the kind of man who doesn’t keep his promises.”

Arthur didn’t know how to process the effect those words had on him. All he knew was that he was filled with a sudden dread at the thought of letting her down again. He didn’t want to see her eyes lose their sparkle, and he didn’t want to reckon with the day she might stop trying to spar with him over breakfast.

I’m not in love with her, he told himself again.

But if he hadn’t known better, he might have been starting to worry about the state of his heart.