Page 48 of A Bride for the Cruel Duke

“I don’t think it’s possible,” he chuckled.

“Let me know, won’t you,” she shot back with a coy smile. “As much as I enjoy fighting with you, it does get rather tiresome.”

Anthony couldn’t help but smile. “Ask me what you will.”

“I was hoping to visit my family today.” She picked up her glass of juice, holding his eyes as she sipped from it. “I know it has been but a day, but I would very much like to see them.”

“Oh…” Anthony blinked, surprised by the simplicity of the request. Although he no longer thought that Caroline was being purposefully combative or trying to push his buttons for the mere sake of it, he was still used to this being her natural state of being. As if she could not help it, just as he could not help falling into her traps. But this… it was such a small thing that he didn’t really know what to say. “That is all?”

“Were you expecting something else?”

“No…” He considered carefully. “I have told you already what this marriage is. You are not my prisoner. You are not in servitude to me. You are free to go where you wish, when you wish to. All I ask in return?—”

“Is for a child.” She cocked an eyebrow at him, slightly combative, but the smirk she wore told him she was only teasing.

“For peace and quiet,” he countered, returning the smirk. “Which I suppose having you out of the house for the day will achieve perfectly.”

She shook her head and laughed. “I will be back by this evening, do not fear.”

“So long as you are,” he said. “I was thinking that again, we might spend the evening together.”

“Oh?” She looked at him curiously. “Is this another one of your… how did you put it? Chances?”

“Do I need an excuse to want to spend the evening with my wife?”

“In this instance, yes you do.”

He laughed. “Then consider is so. After how well last night went, I would be a fool not to press my advantage.”

“Is that how you read last night? As it going well?”

“I did.” He looked right at her. “Unless I was wrong to do so.”

Caroline looked away sheepishly and he saw come color rise in her cheeks. This was all the confirmation he needed, that indeed last went had gone as well as it could have. And further to that point, tonight would be the same.

And just as I was this morning, I am looking forward to it.

* * *

Caroline’s visit with her family was a typically tumultuous experience. But what else could she have expected?

Her older brother, Daniel, was giving her the silent treatment, apparently still vexed with how this marriage had come about, treating it as a scourge upon the family name while furious that his own authority in the matter had been usurped. That wasn’t to say that he avoided Caroline entirely but chose to sit there the whole time and glare at her.

Her younger sister, Eveline, seemed intent on pushing Daniel’s buttons, trying to coax him into snapping at her by questioning why he was behaving in such a surly manner while also implying she might ask the duke to come and give him a talking to.

The youngest of the lot, Iris, was still upset that she was the cause of the marriage alliance, and she spent the entire time hiding behind her mother and refusing to so much as look at Caroline.

While Caroline’s mother, in a bid to pretend that everything was normal and without incidence was even more flamboyantly noisy than usual, speaking at a rate of knots, carrying on as if the marriage had been her idea all along and how wonderful it was that everything had worked out for the best.

It was a long and tiring morning, during which Caroline barely got two words in. She was asked many questions, but before she was able to answer, her mother would either cut her off or Eveline would say something inappropriate. So chaotic was the morning that it wasn’t until Caroline found herself alone with her sister, Aurelia, pulled into her older sister’s bedroom with the door locked behind them, that she was finally able to breathe.

“I bet you are regretting this little visit,” Aurelia laughed as she locked the door and waltzed toward her bed, where she collapsed in a heap.

“I used to hate being treated as if I were invisible,” Caroline admitted as she sat herself down on the chair by the bed. “Now, I find myself missing it.”

“Ha!”

“But what of you?” Caroline asked, wishing to turn the conversation to anyone but herself. “How have you been?”

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