Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

The Next Morning, The Duke of Grovemont’s Bedchamber

“ W ould you like your evening clothes tonight, Your Grace?” Lucian’s valet, Franklin, asked as he finished helping Lucian dress for the morning.

“Yes, please. We’ll be going to the Timberlys’ affair tonight.”

“Very good, Your Grace.” Franklin nodded, bowed, and left the room.

Lucian took one last look at himself in the Cheval glass. Not too shabby. He looked perfectly rested. Most unlike a groom on the morning after his wedding. How would his new bride look? Would she still be frowning when he encountered her this morning? He looked forward to finding out, actually.

Whistling, he made his way down to the breakfast room and pushed open the double doors.

His wife was sitting there. She straightened her back against the chair when he entered the room. The rest of the dining room was empty, save for the servants. The guests had all gone home last night to their own townhomes, including Gemma’s family. It was just the two of them this morning in married splendor. He bit his lip to keep from smiling.

“Good morning,” he said in an overly bright voice.

“Good morning,” she replied in a murmur.

A footman began dishing his plate from the sideboard while Lucian glanced over at Gemma. Her plate was covered with food as if she’d barely eaten anything. At the moment, she seemed to be pushing some unfortunate eggs around with her cutlery.

“I trust you slept well,” Lucian added congenially.

“I did,” came his new wife’s curt reply. “You?”

“Quite well.” He took a seat at the far end of the long table opposite her. And just as he did every morning, he snapped open the paper that had been sitting next to his coffee.

Lucian had read a few paragraphs when his wife cleared her throat in an excessively loud manner. He folded down the edge of the paper and glanced over to meet her gaze. “Are you quite well?” he inquired.

“Are you?” she replied, a bit of a saucy sardonic tone in her voice, surprising him.

He nearly smiled at that. Nearly .

“Yes. Quite.” He lifted the paper again and resumed reading.

Gemma stared at the back of the paper covering her husband’s handsome and highly slappable face. What in the world was going on? Who had she married? At her brother’s house, her family spoke during breakfast. They joked and laughed and talked about the contents of the paper, last night’s amusements, and anything else that caught their fancy. But here was this man reading as if she weren’t even in the room.

And he hadn’t even mentioned anything about why he hadn’t arrived in her bedchamber last night. Not that she expected him to discuss it in the middle of the breakfast room with the servants hovering about, but he hadn’t come to her room earlier this morning either to say…anything.

And now, when she’d attempted to begin conversation, he’d answered in a few clipped words and gone back to reading with the paper covering his face . She’d never encountered anything like it. Purely rude .

“Are you enjoying the paper?” she forced herself to ask as a solicitous footman poured her more tea.

“What’s that?” her husband called without so much as dipping the paper to look at her again.

“Nothing,” she shot back as the footman gave her a sympathetic look.

She sat there, stirring more sugar into her teacup for what felt like endless moments, and becoming more and more annoyed, before she finally dropped her teaspoon to the saucer with a clatter.

“What are your plans today?” she asked in an overly loud voice. Perhaps her new husband was hard of hearing. She doubted it. But it was possible.

“I’ll spend the morning in the study as usual, and then I like to go to the club in the afternoon,” he replied without so much as a tremor in the paper.

Well, far be it for having a new wife to distract the man from his usual pursuits. Fine. If he was going to play the role of the consummate nobleman going about his day, so would she. Gemma lifted her chin. She took a sip of tea and placed the cup back on the saucer before she said, “I suppose I’ll meet with the housekeeper today.”

“No need. Mrs. Howard is quite well-equipped to take care of things here.”

No need? Gemma scowled. They both knew that it was proper for the lady of the house to take over such things as seeing to dinner menus and orders from the merchants. Of course, there was a need. What could he possibly mean?

“I was hoping Mrs. Howard would give me a tour of the house,” Gemma added. There. He couldn’t possibly have an objection to that . “Unless you’d like?—”

“She’ll be more than happy to show you about,” her husband said.

Gemma had been about to ask the man if he would like to show her his home, but apparently that was beneath him. A sudden pang of homesickness hit her. How was she supposed to fit in here with this enigmatic man who didn’t do any of the things she’d been raised to expect in the household of a duke? How was she to be happy here?

She couldn’t go ask Mama or Meredith. Or, perhaps more correctly, she wouldn’t go ask them. First, that would be disloyal. And she had no intention of being a disloyal wife. No matter how strange this household was, her surname was Banks now, and she would be loyal to her new family. But it wasn’t just that.

She also didn’t want either Mama or Meredith to think she couldn’t handle her own new home. They’d both worried about Gemma enough in the past few weeks. In addition to giving her plenty of advice, they’d often given voice to their concerns that the marriage to Grovemont might be too much for Gemma. Gemma had no intention of proving them right and certainly not on her second day. She’d grown up as the baby of the household, constantly being told she was too young or inexperienced to do anything. She’d got herself into this mess with her stubbornness and impatience, and she had every intention of handling it with the grace and bearing of a true duchess. There would be no running back home and begging for advice or assistance.

How would a regal duchess act under such circumstances? Gemma thought for a few moments. A regal duchess certainly wouldn’t allow her new husband to know she was flustered. Or affected in the least, actually. Which meant no more clattering teaspoons and barely veiled anger. That was beneath her.

“After my tour, perhaps I’ll pay a call on my mother and brother,” she said in the most nonchalant voice she could muster.

She stood, folded her napkin, and tossed it on the seat. There. That should show him that his plans had absolutely no impact on her. She wouldn’t allow him to see that his disregard of her hurt. “Good day,” she said as she moved past him toward the corridor.

“Be back and ready by nine,” he instructed, folding his paper as the footman moved to place his plate in front of him. “We’re going to the Timberlys’ ball tonight.”