Page 59 of The Replacement Duchess

“No. I have entered into this marriage with the belief that you trust me and wish to be a friend to me, not that you will lie to me and keep secrets from me.”

She reached for the handle, but it was locked.

“Why did you do that?” he snapped at her.

“Because this is my home.”

“Perhaps, but that room is of none of your concern. I told you to leave it be, now leave it be. Why must you make things so difficult? Do you do it deliberately?”

Diana felt a chill run down her spine, and tears pricked her eyes.

She had lived her life being seen as a burden, as difficult. All her life, she had told herself it was only her father who saw her that way, and that it was not the truth, but there it was, all of the proof that she had needed.

The Duke had thought the same of her, and it had taken a single dispute for his hatred to surface. She turned on her heel and began to walk away.

“Diana, wait,” Colin called after her, following her. “Diana, please, I did not mean it like that.”

“Do not insult me twice.” She laughed emptily, turning to look at him. “There is no other way that you could have meant it.”

He seemed to regret it, but that was of no matter to her.

“Please don’t walk away. We can talk about this.”

“If the only time you are willing to talk to me is after you have hurt me, then I do not wish to talk to you at all. I suppose that is further proof of my difficulty, yes?”

“Diana—”

“No. I asked you to talk to me, to explain, and you have refused. If that is the end of the matter, then that is that. I can handle that. What I cannot tolerate, and what I will not tolerate, is you promising me one thing and then doing the opposite. At least my father was predictable.”

“Do not compare me to that man.”

“Then do not act like him.”

“I am not?—”

But he seemed to catch himself and quietened.

With a nod, Diana turned back and walked away, and this time he did not call for her to come back.

She wondered what could have been so terrible about that room that he did not allow her to look inside, and then her mind went to the one place that it hadn’t been in a long time.

The rumors about him.

Surely, she thought, the Duke was not so foolish that even if hewasguilty, he would leave evidence so brazenly easy to access? If there was anything to hide, it would not be in a room he shared with his wife, would it?

Regardless, she wished to see inside, and no matter what was inside, she felt as though she had a right to.

Unfortunately for the Duke, she was not easily dissuaded when she wanted something. It was a trait of hers that was only aided by the fact that she had already met the housekeeper.

“Miss Thornton,” she asked politely later that afternoon, seeing her alone, “I was wandering the halls when I found a room that you did not show me. The door was locked, and so I was hoping you might show me inside?”

“Ah, you mean… that room. The Duke does not allow that room to be opened.”

In spite of how much she wished not to think of the rumors about her husband, she couldn’t help but let them cross her mind once more. Had he truly committed some grisly murder and hidden something in his home? Of course not, she told herself.

“The Duke has said I could look,” she lied. “He said that it is my home as much as it is his, and so I have a right to see.”

She surprised herself with how easily she lied. It was not something that she was any good at unless it was to protect someone else, but as it happened, she was discovering more about herself than she had once known.

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