Page 21 of Tamed By her Duke

She sat as he crossed from behind the desk to stand in front of it, leaning back against the edge and crossing his legs at the ankles, crossing his arms across his chest. The posture made her hate him a little. She knew this trick. He’d made her sit, then moved to make himself seem bigger. If she moved again, she looked churlish. If she stayed where she was, she had to face his looming form.

She burned,burnedwith rage. He had all the advantages—every one of them. He was a man. A duke. As her husband, he legally controlled her. They were in his house, with his people. And yet he still played tricks to give himself even more domination over her.

She clenched her fists so hard her nails bit into her palms.

He could play his dirty games if he wanted, but there was one thing that she controlled—how she reacted. She’d die before she’d give him an ounce of satisfaction.

“I married ye for one reason and one reason only,” he said, his voice low in the way of a man who was confident that everyone would stop to listen to him. “I need an heir. Aside from that, I daenae need ye and I daenae want ye. Aside from that, I daenae care what you do. As long as ye don’t get yerself round with another man’s give, you can do as ye please.”

For all her vows about not reacting, Grace could not stop her eyes from growing round at his crude references. She thought she might find blood when she finally unclenched her fists.

“That’s the start and end of our business together,” he continued. “It’s business. Ye’ll have yer allowance and it’ll be generous. Ye’ll have yer freedom, so long as ye return to bed at night to lay back and do yer duty. If ye hate me, fine. If ye want to think of some other man while ye’re at it, fine. As long as it’s my babe in your belly, it’s naught to me. But don’t come nattering on about dinner conversation or niceties. This is nae a romance, like ye English girls are forever sighin’ over. It’s a deal. And so long as ye hold up yer end of the bargain, I daresay we’ll not have much to discuss with one another.”

This was…insupportable. It was egregious! Outrageous! Grace’s education had been top-notch for a woman—as her father liked to brag—and she did not have words for the utterabsurdityof what was being presented before her.

Oh, she knew there were businesslike marriages. But ones where the man practicallyencouragedhis wife to be unfaithful, so long as she didn’t find herself increasing? Ones where he didn’t even bother to pretend that he was going to treat her courteously? That was something else entirely.

Grace found that she could no longer simply sit there. She stood, practically shaking with rage. Moving out of her chair brought her too close to her husband by half, the hem of her skirts grazing his boots where they were propped lazily in front of him.

“So you think,” she said, pleased when her voice came out level, “that you can so grievously insult me and then, what? You plan to throw me into your bed like some sort of ancient marauder? You intend to force me?”

She had said it mostly to be cruel, to getsomethingback in this losing game. But part of it had been a test. To his credit, he flinched, though he covered it quickly.

“I’ll not force ye, lass,” he said. His words weren’t soft, but they were firm. And that was something of a condolence—likely the best she was liable to get.

“I’ll not,” he repeated. “Ye…need time to adjust. I accept that.” He was stone. She would never wear him down. “You can have two weeks. After that, you will live up to your end of our arrangement. Do you understand me?”

She did. She understood that she should have fought harder, should never have trusted that her father cared enough abouther to check that the man she was to marry wasn’t a brute before he’d signed her life away. She understood that this was a new prison—but that unlike her old prison, this one at least had windows. There would be glimpses of the sun. She would have children. She would have things—and only a person who had never been denied things like clean clothes and warm blankets would pretend that didn’t matter. She would get to write to her friends.

It would be a life in the way she hadn’t had in a long while. Not a perfect life, not a real marriage. But a life.

And part of making that life livable would be holding onto her pride. She’d learned that lesson, too. Sometimes the fight mattered just to fight.

So she didn’t answer. She raised her chin and met his eye.

Yet, just like everything else in the utter farce her life had become, this was a misstep, because she was standing lose, and his face was close to hers, and they’d just been talking about, if not lovemaking, then at least something not entirely unrelated.

And his eyes were so very, very blue. Blue, like the way one imagined the sea should look. Blue, like the deepest night when the moon was full. Deep and dark, with just enough color that you could not look away.

That Grace could not look away.

He was just sobig. It was unfashionable to be this big, this broad, but Grace couldn’t envision a world where Caleb cared if his looks were fashionable. He’d been in the military, he’d said. Surely that strength had kept him safe, kept him alive.

Maybe she’d have been better off if that hadn’t happened, but she couldn’t help but be grateful that he hadn’t died in some far-off ditch somewhere. At least for right now, she felt that way.

Her mouth felt dry. She licked her lips. His gaze flickered, just a bit, when she moved, and she couldn’t help but wonder if the two weeks he’d promised her had just vanished with that one simple movement.

She wondered if she was sorry about that.

She kept wondering for half a breath longer. She thought that maybe, just maybe, he leaned toward her.

And then all the things he’d said came back to her?—

Broodmare.

I daenae need ye and I daenae want ye.

Lay back and do yer duty.

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