Page 15 of Between a Duke and a Hard Place
Max winced. “Without a doubt.”
She sighed. “Wonderful.”
“It will be for you. She adores you,” he said accusingly. “I’ll be raked over the coals worse than when I was a boy at school.”
Glancing back at him as she removed the plaits from her hair before beginning the arduous task of brushing it, she simply arched her eyebrow. “Are you expecting sympathy?”
His gaze was fixed on the wealth of dark red hair now spilling over her shoulder. It was truly a ludicrous amount, Violet knew. Her hair had long been the very bane of her existence. It seemed to defy all efforts to tame it.
“Never that,” he finally managed. “I daresay you are incapable of that emotion… at least where I am concerned. But we do need to stop snapping at one another long enough to come up with a feasible explanation for our hasty marriage.”
She sighed. “It can’t be the truth.”
“No,” he said. “It can’t. We must decide how we are going to convince the world that we are, in fact, utterly devoted to one another.”
Violet turned away from him to brush her hair in the mirror, but she could still see his face in the looking glass. “Oh? Are we not already the very picture of matrimonial bliss?”
Max smirked. “Yes. Nothing says ‘happily married’ like verbal lacerations prior to breaking our fast.”
She scowled but simply turned away.
“I shall meet you in the dining hall,” he said. “Do try to compose yourself before then, darling.”
He departed swiftly, leaving Violet muttering unkind things under her breath.
Because, as always, Max had managed to get the last word.
And she absolutely hated when he did that.
The breakfast room at Wellston Hall had been unbearably tense since the moment Ethella Cavender had seated herself at the head of the table. Violet’s disappearance had left everyone on edge. Of course, Ethella had an inkling where the girl had gone. After all, they were in the middle of nowhere—the very wilds of Yorkshire. Resentment bubbled inside her. She could have been enjoying tea in their very comfortable London townhouse, not quite in Mayfair but close enough to it to still be considered fashionable. But instead of that, instead of planning a day of promenading in the park and then shopping on Bond Street, she was surrounded by fields and an inordinate number of livestock.
Nigel, still bleary-eyed from a night spent drinking, was poking unenthusiastically at a plate of eggs, looking as though he would rather be anywhere else.
Ethella, meanwhile, was drumming her fingers against the table, her sharp gaze trained on the door.
The butler entered, carrying a fresh pot of tea, and Ethella immediately pounced.
“Well?” she demanded.
The butler, accustomed to his mistress’s unyielding impatience, merely set the tea down and bowed stiffly.
“A messenger arrived this morning, madam.”
Ethella’s fingers tightened. “And?”
The butler hesitated, as if weighing the wisdom of delivering the news.
“It appears,” he said carefully, “that Miss Honeywell is now the Duchess of Alstead.”
There was a moment of silence.
Then—
A teacup shattered against the marble floor.
Nigel jumped, cursing as his mother rose to her feet, her face an alarming shade of red.
“She what?”
