Page 22 of Duke of Moonstone
He was standing in her doorway in his shirtsleeves, his cravat loosened at the throat, and for a moment that stretched far longer than it had any right to, neither of them moved.
Frances was aware, with a sudden and excruciating clarity, of every single thing about herself that was wrong for this moment—the nightdress, thin and pale against her skin. Her hair, unbound, falling past her shoulders in loose waves that Miss Ripley had brushed out not ten minutes ago. Her bare feet on the carpet.
The Duke’s gaze moved over her in a way that made the blood rise to her face and the air in the room feel considerably warmer than it had been a moment ago.
She pulled her dressing gown tighter around herself with both hands and knotted the sash with more force than was strictly necessary.
“Your Grace.” The words came out sharper than she had intended though she was not entirely sorry for it. “I did not expect you.”
He said nothing for a moment. He was watching her hands on the sash, and then his eyes came back to hers, and whatever he was thinking was locked behind the same composed expression he wore to every occasion, apparently including the doorways of bedchambers he had no business appearing in unannounced.
The frustration she had been carefully containing all evening suddenly surged forward. The empty chair at dinner. The long afternoon wandering through a house that did not feel like hers with a husband who had vanished into his study as soon as they arrived and had not come out since. Her wedding day spent alone.
“What do you want?” she asked and lifted her chin.
Something shifted in his expression. A flicker of surprise, perhaps, that she had spoken to him so directly.
Good. He should be surprised. He has earned it.
The Duke stepped into the room.
Frances felt as if the room had shrunken. It had been a perfectly reasonable size two minutes ago, large enough for a bed and a writing desk and a dressing table and several chairs, but now, it felt as though someone had moved the walls closer together. His presence took up more space than his body accounted for.
Frances held her ground. She was not going to step back. She was absolutely, categorically not going to step back.
“I believe we have matters to discuss,” he said. “We are husband and wife now.”
The words landed in the small distance between them, plain and undeniable, and Frances felt the heat climb further up her cheeks and hated herself for it.
“Are we?” She held his gaze. “I had nearly forgotten, given how little I have seen of you today.”
“I had affairs that required my attention.”
“On your wedding day?”
“Affairs do not observe social calendars.”
“Nor, it would seem, do husbands observe dinner.”
His jaw clenched. The tiniest movement, barely noticeable, but Frances had spent enough time with this man to understandwhat that particular jaw setting indicated. He was choosing his words carefully which meant she had struck a nerve, and that realization brought her a satisfaction that was perhaps not entirely appropriate, but one she was going to enjoy nonetheless.
“You are right,” he said. “I should have joined you. I did not, and I apologize.”
Frances blinked. She had not expected that. She had been bracing for a defense, for the cool logic he deployed so readily, and instead, he had simply apologized. Plainly and without qualification.
It was deeply inconvenient. She had been working up to a proper argument, and he had taken away her opening move.
“Well,” she said, and then, because she could not think of a suitable response to an apology she had not anticipated receiving, “well, good.”
Brilliant, Frances. Absolutely devastating.
The Duke clasped his hands behind his back. It was a gesture she recognized from their previous encounters, the stance of a man arranging himself for something. “Regardless of my failings this evening,” he said, “the fact remains that there are matters we must discuss. Matters that cannot be postponed indefinitely.”
“What matters?”
“You are my duchess now.”
“You have said that already.”
