Page 26 of His Enemy Duchess

I should have forced it down,she lamented, ravenous.

The soft coldness of the night grazed her skin as she half crawled from beneath the coverlets that refused to smother her into slumber. She turned over and stared at the ceiling.

Everything was strange and wrong.Her husbandwas strange and wrong, kissing her like that. So, why wasn’t she angrier? Why did she keep replaying the moment in her mind?

She glared at an old cobweb, pushing away all thoughts of Thomas, focusing on the crown molding and cornice above her.

It wasn’t the familiar room she had grown up in, the one where she had spent countless hours playing, reading, and planning her future. No, she was at Heathcote Manor, surrounded by more dead silence and the suffocating feeling of being out of her depth.

I wish James was here.

When they were children and James found out that she was struggling to sleep, he’d come to her room and tell her jokes and stories until she fell asleep. But not this time. This time, she was alone.

She draped her arm over her eyes, feeling tears welling up.

No… I am not going to cry. Absolutely not. I am a grown woman. I will… I will not?—

Sophia stifled a sob, remembering something her mother used to say.

“There is nothing so soothing for the soul as a good cry, sometimes.”

With that firmly in mind, Sophia pulled a pillow over her face to muffle any sound and opened the floodgates, letting her tears pour into the linen, letting her sobs loosen the tight fist around her chest.

She stayed like that for a few minutes, giving herself permission to grieve her old life. Then, she got up, replacing her misery with the nagging need to find something to eat. Hunger was an easier problem to solve.

In her nightdress and defiantly bare feet, carrying a candle, she headed out of the unfamiliar bedchamber to explore the manor. Minimal moonlight peeked through the windows, but it was enough to help her and her candle to find their way around.

What unnerved her more, however, was that awful, constant silence. Back at her family home, even at late hours, she could hear her brothers arguing in the library about something inane or hear her parents share a drink and giggle upstairs like young lovebirds. When she was younger, it helped her sleep, knowing that there were other people in the house with her, awake and going about their business. It made her feel safe.

This house, by contrast, felt like a church during the day and a graveyard at night. One more thing to add to the list of reasons this marriage would be intolerable.

No matter. She’d find a way to bear it. She would make this place her home, whether it wanted to be or not.

After a while, Sophia found herself in the library. Stumbling around, she shone the candlelight over the spines of endless books, trying to find something that caught her eye.

There has to be something interesting to read here.

She expected to find boring books about enterprise and accounting, and she was mostly proven right… until the title of a book caught her attention.

The King of Guanches.

She knew it, but she had not yet read it. It was an epic tale about a Barbary pirate who terrorized the islands of Guanches and was rumored to have thousands of concubines and an uncountable fortune.

A perfect choice for a solitary wedding night.

She grabbed the book and sat on the large reading chair next to the window, leaving the candle on the sill. She curled her legs under her nightgown, settling in for a long night. The chair was obviously made for someone a lot taller and bigger than her, so she had plenty of space.

She got comfortable and started reading, letting the story carry her away to faraway shores full of vibrant characters, colorful landscapes, and enough adventure and romance to make up for her dull life. A place where men did not kiss for punishment, but for unending and star-crossed love.

“Yes! Kiss her! She wants you to kiss her!” Sophia squealed, hardly daring to turn the page to find out if the author wouldgive her what her heart desired, or if censorship would rob her of that singular pleasure.

The shriek of the library door’s hinges transformed her squeal into a stifled scream as she jumped violently in her chair, dropping the book like a hot poker.

“Who’s there?” a familiar voice growled.

She scrambled for a cushion, holding it over herself, wishing she had blown out the candle instead of leaping out of her skin. That way, Thomas might have missed her and gone on his merry way.

“Sophia?”

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