Page 59 of Duke of the Sun

Cordelia’s eyes widened. “I -”

“I told you before, Cordelia, why I rushed into a marriage with a Lady I had never courted,” Michael explained. “Does that rid me of my conscience? Of the awareness of the life I took from you? The future you might have been dreaming of? Am I wrong to have believed that to be reason enough to take such drastic measures with someone’s own life?”

The shock of his reason still rattled her. Cordelia would have never guessed it to have been a reason. Out of all the things she believed, that harshly real explanation was too grandiose to have been false. No one of their right mind would make up such a thing, and Cordelia scorned herself for believing him to have been a liar, to have had a terrible truth that would’ve thrusted her head first into an unbelievable despair.

Cordelia fought the urge to touch his face.

“The fault of my absence these past few years lies with me and me alone,” Michael added. “Do not carry that burden on your shoulders for any longer. I hope you might forgive me for making you hold it in the first place.”

Cordelia’s heart softened even further, if that was at all possible. The elation she felt from their kiss in the orangery came surging back to her chest. Suddenly, she wanted to stand on the tips of her toes to get closer to him, to angle her face up and invite him down for another kiss. Somehow, the hardened beast of a Duke managed to wrap his way around her heart, and only further intertwined himself with her rather than drive them deeper apart.

“Do you still believe that to be true?” Cordelia whispered.

“What?”

“That I might turn to those drastic measures. Do you still fear it?”

Michael searched her eyes, as if he searched for the answer right then and there. Finally, after a long pause, the tension crept out from his jaw, the corner of his lip twitching upwards. “No,” he murmured. “I do not believe I do.”

Cordelia let a small smile cross her face. “Then I am happy.”

Taking in a deep breath, Cordelia let herself pull her hand out of his own. Giving him a short bow, she turned around, and slipped out of his chambers, gently closing the door behind her. She raised her hand, dragging her fingers across her lips. Perhaps the Duke was an entirely different man after all, not at all what the Ton had originally made him out to be. Or, on the other hand, he was the beast they knew him as, and it was only Cordelia’s arrival that helped him to ease the tension that clouded his heart.

Either way, Cordelia was quickly aware of two things. The first was that there was something brewing within her in regards to Michael. The man she once viewed as a hindrance, a figure standing in the way of all the work she had done on the estate, was nowhere near that any longer. Instead, he was Michael, her husband. Michael, the man who lived down the hall. Michael, the once beastly Duke who now so readily held her heart.

Secondly: she wished he could have kissed her again.

CHAPTER17

“We have looked at all the dresses you own, your Grace.” Mrs. Bellflower exasperatedly opened one of the windows, letting in the cool spring breeze till it filled the hot room.

Across Cordelia’s bed was each one of her gowns, all laid out and cast aside. For the last hour or two, the housekeeper pulled the dress forward, showing it to Cordelia till she soundly turned them away. The dresses were too tight, too bright, too flowery or too dark. Not one of them resounded with Cordelia in the way she wanted them too. Even though plenty of them would do perfectly for the garden party they would attend later in the day, Cordelia did not want something that would simply “do.”

“Perhaps we should look through them again,” Cordelia said as she looked over the series of dresses. “Now that they are all out, it won’t be half as tedious, won’t it?”

Mrs. Bellflower sighed as she pulled away from the window. “If you don’t mind me saying, your Grace, you seem to be quite unusually frantic this morning. Are you nervous for the party?”

“Oh, heavens no,” Cordelia replied as she waved her hand in the air, using the other to push through the dresses. “There’s hardly anything to worry about when it comes to the party. Most of the work in tending to the Ton’s rumors has been settled. I barely remember it in the first place.”

“That is very good, your Grace,” Mrs. Bellflower said. “Though I suppose it doesn’t quite halt my questioning.”

Cordelia pressed her lips together, keeping her face facing the nosy housekeeper. The night before revealed countless truths that Cordelia found herself incapable of admitting. While she was more than pleased that Michael admitted to her doing nothing wrong that sent him away from the estate on their wedding night, Cordelia was now plagued with the relentless butterflies that filled her stomach at the very mention of his name. Michael looked different in her eyes, suddenly, and the idea of attending a romantic garden party alongside him gave her a thrill she wasn’t expecting.

Suddenly there was the added stress of picking a dress Michael would admire. There was the matter of her hair, and how many pins she should fill it with. She wondered if he would kiss her again, if he would hold her hand, if their eyes would hold each other in a different way than they did before.

Cordelia shook her head.Have I managed to go mad overnight?

To impress a Duke was something Cordelia never prepared herself for. In fact, it had never been a matter of importance in the past. But now, as Mrs. Bellflower tiredly returned to looking through the piles of dresses, Cordelia fought the idea of Michael liking none of them, and her efforts to see him pleased alongside her would fade into nothing. Perhaps he would laugh at her, claim that she managed to take his words too far, that he still planned on leaving once the chance arrived.

Cordelia shook her head another time, desperate to be rid of the thoughts that plagued her so easily. The embarrassment threatened to grab a hold of her tongue, but Cordelia was desperate to share her racing mind with someone, and the only one available to do so with was the housekeeper herself.

“Mrs. Bellflower,” Cordelia began in a quiet voice, “When one realizes theydowish to be bound to their husband in more ways than a simple marriage license, which dress would they wear?”

The housekeeper blinked a few times as she thought the words over, her aged eyes glancing down at the dresses before snapping back up to Cordelia. “Truly, your Grace?” she breathed. “Do you mean to say that the Duke will be staying in Solshire?”

“I cannot promise a single thing,” Cordelia blurted. “I only speak of the trials and tribulations within my own heart.”

Mrs. Bellflower rounded the bed to stand beside Cordelia, taking her hands in the same way a loving mother might hold their child’s hands. “Your Grace,” the housekeeper began excitedly, “If that is the true extent of your feelings, I pray you may gather the courage to voice them to the Duke in the way you voice them to me now.”

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