Page 66 of Duke of the Sun

“How can you even know of that?” Cordelia held back her bitter laugh. “Can news possibly travel that far outside of London?”

“I still come to the city for business, Cordelia,” he said. “That’s plenty of time to hear about a rumor or two.” He looked at her disapprovingly. “It sounds as though you’ve gotten up to mischief at Solshire.”

“Perhaps I have!”

Colin laughed. “As long as you are well, Cordelia. Are you well?”

“I’m -” Cordelia paused, unsure of what it was she would truly say. She supposed things were good enough. If things went on as they had been, perhaps the relationship between Cordelia and Michael would surely change. Talking would grow easier as the walls he held around him crumbled to the ground. Perhaps, one day, he might trust her enough to reveal the true Michael that lied within.

It was that mere thought, that distant hope, that gave Cordelia the ability to answer him the way she did. Even when Irene’s warning rang in the back of her mind, she pushed past it, desperate to be honest, to truly mean it. It was all that she wanted, after all.

“I am more than well, Colin.”

CHAPTER19

Michael couldn’t help but enjoy the fact that he and Rhys stood out from the rest of the Ton like a sore thumb. The pair of them dressed in black, their hair pulled back and glowering. Michael glanced at his close friend and could hardly recognize him within the sea of flowers, the Lady’s dressed in pale colored sundresses standing out shockingly against his silhouette. Michael glanced over his shoulder at his wife and her sister.

Cordelia looked like a sunflower within a dull field of green. She was the brightest in the entire batch, and he couldn’t dare to even think about pulling his stare away. He happened to be her husband, after all, and that responsibility suddenly felt like the greatest he ever had. Michael felt the greatest tug towards her when they were the furthest apart, as if he could feel the tension in their separation. The bond was staggering and unexpected, something he was never supposed to have.

The life she wanted - married and living alongside a partner - was nothing Michael was prepared to give. Perhaps when she called him a recluse she failed to understand the simple meaning of the word. Even there, within the garden and alongside Rhys, Michael wished for an immediate escape, overcome with discomfort by all the Ton members surrounding them. Michael glanced at his friend, and judging by the stricken look on his face, he knew that he felt the same way.

“You seem different,” Rhys suddenly said.

Michael leaned against a pillar within the garden, his hands grazing the lilacs. A few bees buzzed by his head. “How so?”

Rhys shrugged. “We’ll have to see about it in the ring, won’t we?”

Though he was only teasing, Michael was suddenly interested in hearing more. “Differenthow,Rhys?”

He shrugged, not too bothered by Michael’s persistence. “More at ease, if that’s at all possible for you to comprehend.”

Michael scoffed. “I hardly feel at ease.”

“We are talking about two different things, I believe.”

“What?”

Rhys leaned closer to him. “Perhaps you aren’tat easein this very moment, but in the grand scheme of things,” he raised his shoulders, “You seem different. Is that so bad?”

“Depends,” Michael grumbled.

Immediately his mind was focused on Cordelia once more. There was only one thing different in his life, something that was burrowing itself in the back of his mind like a cold. He already dove in too deep, unable to break the tie that was so easy to sever when they were first wed. He neared the point in which he was in no rush to leave Solshire, to say goodbye to her or the life she built so beautifully in the estate. Since returning, he saw Hunters smile more times than he had all his life. And, once again, only a single thing had changed.

“When will I get to meet her?”

Michael’s head shot up. “You can't possibly mean -”

“Your wife,” Rhys said. “How much longer can you keep her from your best friend?”

“We have discussed this before. Introducing her to you implies something permanent, something that I will not be able to keep.”

Rhys shook his head and sighed. “Where in the devil did that come from?”

“What?”

“Your incessant need to prove that you cannot be a good husband to Cordelia,” Rhys snapped. “What has driven you into such a reckless insecurity, Michael?”

His eyebrows shot up. “In no way am I an insecure man, Rhys.”

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