Chapter 5

Chapter Five

"Y ou locked me in here?"

Evangeline whirled, one hand on her chest, and came face to face with the duke standing a few paces from her, bare-chested and hair mussed. In his hand, he held a key.

Righteous indignation flooded her.

"I did."

"How dare you!"

"I cannot have my wife escape."

"And so you treat me like a prisoner?"

His gaze dropped from her face, catching on to her lips, then traveled down the rest of her body. "Despite your evident supposition, wife, I am not an idiot. I knew you would attempt to escape."

"I merely wanted breakfast," she said coldly.

"Is that so? Well then, you will not be so disappointed to wait for me."

Infuriating man.

"Is this how our marriage is to be? You issue decrees and expect me to do nothing but go along with them?"

"That is precisely what I imagine our marriage will be like."

"Well, I am sorry to disappoint, but I have no intention of being married to a tyrant."

"Oh?" He leaned in closer, pushing her up against the wall. "I think you're lying to me, Evangeline. But let me clarify something, my sweet, because it would do you good to know it."

His voice lowered into a gravelly whisper that skittered along her skin. "You belong to me now, whether you like it or not."

Her stomach twisted, and she glared at him, attempting to put every last bit of hatred into her gaze. But there was something else coiling in her stomach at the way he leaned over her, the possessive light in his eyes as he watched her. She had the oddest temptation to bare her neck to him to see if he would take it. Whether he would hold her against the door with the power of his hands alone.

The thought made her shiver. Gooseflesh dotted her arms.

Something flared in his eyes, as though he saw and understood the response of her body and could make more sense of it than her. The air thickened, and she was fairly sure she had forgotten how to breathe.

"Sir?" A knock on the door vibrated through her, and the duke glanced up with a curse, his expression turning blank. Everything that had lit in his eyes just seconds ago tamping down as though it had never existed.

"Yes?" he called, stepping back and allowing Evangeline to escape. She hurried to the other side of the room, wrapping her arms around herself and trying to steady her breathing.

"You asked me to check if you were ready, Your Grace," came a male voice on the other side of the door. "Being as it is you want to start early."

"Of course. Thank you, Hutchins."

"Yes, Your Grace."

The duke turned to her, his expression cold.

"It seems your wish is granted and we will be breakfasting immediately after all. Get ready and pack your case. I'll send someone up for our things." As he spoke, he crossed the room to his trunk and began to dress himself without so much as a valet to help him.

For a moment, Evangeline watched him, wondering why this man was so very determined not to use the resources he had access to. A man of his consequence could demand the use of a valet wherever he went, and one would be found for him. Yet here he was, behaving as though he had forgotten such things existed.

As though, in short, he was not a duke at all.

What a strange man.

What was she to do about him?

* * *

Time passed altogether too slowly for Hugh's sake. Stuck in a carriage with a woman who seemed determined to bore him out of his mind with her silence, or to test his dominance with her defiance, he was counting down the seconds until they finally arrived at Eldermoor Castle.

At night, he pretended to sleep as he listened to her breathe and reminded himself that, although she was his wife, he was entirely out of bounds.

This was the choice he had made for himself, and he would not regret it or find ways to back down now.

Eventually, on the fifth day of travel, the landscape having slowly become less lush and green, they traveled through the crags of the northeast, heather dotting the hills and the sheep grazing across the landscape. Rocky walls lined the fields, and spiky gorse hunched along hilltops.

This was his home, the land he had grown up in, had run about free in, and his shoulders loosened as he released a long breath.

Evangeline glowered at him. She had been doing so after their latest night in the inn where he had once again locked the door. It was for her own good as well as his—he did not want a wife who ran away, but equally she was unaware of the dangers that would await her if she enacted her plans.

Her defiance lit something in him, a fire that he did his best to repress. As much as he longed to bend her will, to pit her temper against his own, he knew he needed restraint. For the sake of them both.

"Have we arrived?" she asked.

"Not long now." He laced his fingers and rested them in his lap. "I think it's pertinent that you know the situation before we begin."

Her brow arched. "The situation?"

"This is a marriage of convenience. No doubt you already know that, as we did not court beforehand. As such, you have all the consequence of my name and the rank of a duchess, and you have a place in my home. The castle is yours, and the servants your domain, but you must not forget that I am the duke; the master of my home."

Her eyes flashed, and the expression went right through him, a fish on a hook. Desire sparked, and he wondered if she knew how naturally subservient she was sexually. Doubtful. She'd probably never had the chance to learn it about herself.

He wanted to be the one to teach her.

That was an urge that was getting him nowhere.

"Am I not your equal as your duchess?" she asked, lifting her chin.

He loved the way she did that, defiance even as she bared him her neck.

She was a perfect package, soft in all the right places, with beauty that shone within rather than being cultivated.

She had no idea what she did to him.

He intended to keep it that way.

"You are my wife," he said. "And that makes me your master."

"My master ?"

"Need I remind you," he murmured silkily, "that you are mine, to do with as I choose."

A delicious flush rose up her neck to her cheeks. He longed to feel the heat against his tongue.

"Do you imagine I will bend over and do your will?"

An image flashed in his mind of her bent over, her backside positioned to him.

He shifted in his seat. "I imagine that you will do precisely as I instruct, or else I will be forced to punish you."

"Punish me? What sort of primeval response is that?"

Not so much primeval as primal, but the less she knew about that, the better.

"I think you ought to consider your situation very carefully," he said, moving across the carriage so he was sitting by her side. "You won't want to get on my bad side."

"Why? Will you do to me as you did to George?"

His mood shifted, turning darker. "What do you have to say in his defense? Are you disappointed you couldn't marry him?"

Her tongue slipped out, moistening her lips. "He would have been a good deal more pleasant than you."

"Is that so? Do you think I am capable of leaving my wife to perish along with the child I sired?"

He took her chin in his fingers, and her eyes widened. She quivered a little underneath him, her body responding even as he could see the defiance light in her eyes once more. Along with heat.

Oh, she would be delightfully responsive if he could bring himself to have her—but that would be a foolish, dangerous thing for him to do.

He longed to do it anyway.

"Is that what you intend to do with me?" she asked, gazing up at him. Her knee pressed against his thigh. "To sire children?"

He hadn't intended to see much of her at all once they had arrived at Eldermoor Castle, but he couldn't deny how tempting the thought was.

"Is that not what husbands usually do with their wives?" he asked, leaning down so his face was inches above. "It's what you thought I would try on our journey."

"And yet you haven't."

"And yet I haven't," he murmured. "Did that come as a disappointment, wife of mine?"

Her jaw snapped shut. "No."

"Would you rather I kissed you here so you stopped wondering what it would be like?"

Her pupils flared, black ink that threatened to swallow him. He knew all the signs of arousal, the shallow breaths, the wide eyes and the flush across her skin. The skimpy nightgowns she had been wearing—purchased, no doubt, for Sandhurst—had been the perfect little package. He knew now the shape of her breasts, the rounded hump of her derriere, the soft swell of her belly and her hips.

All the things he delighted in.

"Do not defy me," he said, still holding her chin, "or I shall show you precisely what it means to be a wife of mine, and I shall ensure that you enjoy it."

"I would never enjoy it."

"Bold words when you are unversed in pleasure." He drew his finger along the line of her jaw to the soft skin below her ear. "I'll bet you have no idea what your body is capable of. Nor mine."

"Oh, and I suppose you would wish to teach me?"

The carriage lurched to a stop, and he released her, tucking his hand inside his coat before he could be tempted to touch her again.

Yes , he would be delighted to teach her; once she got over her attitude, he had no doubts she would be an adept pupil.

But he had more important things to do.

"We've arrived," he said curtly, and when a footman opened the door, he accepted the hand down, glancing about him.

The stone walls of the castle glowed a soft gold in the sunlight, the sandstone edges worn from age.

Evangeline wrinkled her nose as she stepped out of the carriage. "I smell brine."

"That would be the sea."

"The sea?"

"You may have heard of it, perhaps. We are beside the North Sea. Across the ocean lies Norway. This is the area the Vikings raided first."

"Vikings?" Her eyes were wide as she hurried after him to the front door where the staff were gathered. "Goodness, how old is this castle?"

"The foundations date back to the sixth century, but the bulk of the castle was erected in the thirteenth century."

The facts had been drilled into him from an early age, and he relayed them with ease. According to his father, although their descendants had not built the castle, its age and prominence within Northumbrian history was a point of pride.

In his own way, Hugh was proud of the castle. His father had modernized it significantly, and although on the outside it bore every resemblance to a castle of old, inside the only hint that they were in a castle were the thick walls.

"Come," he said, gesturing to the housekeeper, Mrs. MacDonald. "It's time to meet your staff."

* * *

Evangeline curtsied before the steely gaze of the housekeeper, who was plump and looked to be in her early fifties. "Thank you for receiving me," she said.

"This is Mrs. MacDonald," the duke said with a careless wave of his hand and an affectionate smile saved purely for the housekeeper.

For all he had held her chin and spoken of intimacy in the carriage, it was clear the duke felt nothing warm for her.

For his servants, on the other hand, it seemed as though he reserved a great deal of fondness.

"Mrs. MacDonald," Evangeline said.

The woman gave a slight inclination of her head.

"Duchess," she said.

Her accent was like the duke's but more pronounced, rounded, and clipped at the same time.

Not Scottish, Evangeline thought, having heard that burr a few times. But something perhaps approaching it.

"Show Her Grace around, if you please," the duke said. "I have some business to attend to."

Oh, naturally, of course, he was going to leave her with the servants, all of them viewing her as though she was some kind of caterpillar that had crawled in by accident.

"Ah reet," the housekeeper said, and Evangeline thought she must have tried to say all right . "Shall we get gaan, ma'am?"

"Gaan?"

"Going," the duke translated. "It's a regional accent, Duchess—you'll pick it up soon enough."

Not that he cared one way or the other.

Meekly, Evangeline followed the housekeeper inside the main door.

Inside, she was relieved to find the castle was decorated much like any house she was accustomed to—there were rugs on the stone floor, wallpaper on the walls, and although the rooms were large and grand, with antechambers breaking off from them, the furniture was modern enough that she felt as though it was possible to be comfortable here.

If only she could understand the servants.

Mrs. MacDonald kept up a brisk stream of information that Evangeline was certain would be necessary for her to understand, but that she was currently at a loss to interpret. The housekeeper also showed no signs of slowing her speech or using more commonly accepted words.

That was easy enough to interpret at least: the servants resented her presence there, and no doubt didn't want her to take over matters with her way of doing things.

The number of rooms within the castle was dizzying. There were three parlors, a morning room, two staterooms, a drawing room, a music room, and a dining room, all downstairs. That was not to mention a small antechamber that seemed dedicated to the display of snuffboxes, and ‘the armory' which was largely empty, and Evangeline gathered had once been used as the family chapel.

Now the family attended church in the village at the foot of the castle; it was good for the landowners to engage with their people.

What really struck Evangeline's attention, however, was the portrait above the fireplace in the main stateroom. It was a family portrait, or so she presumed, of the duke and a young woman by his side. Given that the duke's face didn't appear to have changed from the version she was acquainted with, she suspected it had not been painted that long ago. And the young lady by his side, with an open, pretty face, had to be his sister.

"Come on, now," Mrs. MacDonald said and led her up a set of narrow stairs to the second floor.

They were now in the eastern guard tower, which was where the family slept, as Evangeline understood it. Her bedchamber was with the duke's at the very top.

"And this will be your bedchamber, ma'am," Mrs. MacDonald said when they entered a communal living space at the top of the stairs. The door to the right was now hers. "The other is of course His Grace's."

Evangeline tried not to think about the way he had held her chin in his hands. The strength in his fingers, the expression in his eyes—a hunger that had made her stomach twist and something lower in her belly turn to liquid.

No, she did not like him, not at all, but she couldn't deny that there was something in him that she found intriguing.

"Is there anything else you need, Your Grace?" Mrs. MacDonald asked.

Somehow, and Evangeline wasn't sure how she did it, words such as ‘grace' were elongated to feel as though they had twice as many syllables as they should.

She had never come across an accent like it.

"No," Evangeline said. "That is to say, I need a lady's maid."

"I'll have one sent up."

"Well then. Thank you. And I hope we shall become friends."

Mrs. MacDonald said nothing, merely turning away and walking down the corridor. Although she was in a house filled with people—most of them servants—Evangeline had never felt so alone in her life.

Still, she kept her chin up.

At least this way, Clara would have a good Season and a chance to marry a man she could love.