Page 29 of A Virgin for the Duke of Scars
As the sun set, he made his way back to the manor for supper. Part of him was eager to be around her, to talk with her, to get to know her in some other non-carnal way.
His little nun had him intriguedandaroused.
When Aaron entered the dining room alone, Juliette and his grandmother were already seated at the table.
Conspicuously missing was his new wife. He swallowed and tried to hide his disappointment that she would not join them for the first real meal they would share at Blackwell Manor.
Perhaps it was for the best that she would keep her distance from him after what they did. Seeing what hewantedto do to her.
“She’s asleep,” Juliette offered when he sat at the head of the table, gesturing to the empty seat on his right.
“She has had a long couple of days.” He shrugged. “Traveling wore her out, not to mention the wedding festivities. Instruct the servants not to disturb her. She will come down from her room when she is ready.”
Two footmen began serving the meal, but he was no longer hungry.
“Forgive me, but I have realized I have no appetite,” Aaron announced, mostly for his grandmother’s sake. “I will be in my tower.”
He excused himself from the table without another word and retreated to his quarters. He stripped out of his clothes and slipped into a nightshirt, hoping that rest would find him after the stress of the day.
But when he lay in bed, the only thing he could think about was his wife.
He thought of all the ways he could welcome her into this chamber, where she thought they would share a bed. He thought of all the ways he could bend her over the bed, how wet she would be for him. The way she moaned his name when he touched her made him want to touch himself and pretend that it was her small hand.
He could not sleep, thinking these inappropriate thoughts. He threw off the coverlet and went to the small side table to pour himself a glass of whiskey.
The best thing he could do was simply take his mind off what he wanted most.
He would have to stay here until he had more control over himself.
Damn her rules about spending time together each day.Shewas hiswife, andhewould set the rules in their marriage. They would no longer get to know each other as he had originally planned.
Theresa came out of her suite early the next morning, refreshed after a night of decent sleep.
How long had it been since she had slept in? In the convent, they woke up at the crack of dawn to start chores and do the morning prayers. That meant it had been more than twenty years.
She woke up in the middle of the night several times, disappointed to find that she was still alone. Sister Edith and Margaret had always been close by, and she missed them desperately.
It was not uncommon for Margaret to slip into bed with her around midnight, their cold feet brushing beneath the thin, coarse blankets.
She had companions in the convent, but she could have had a sister—a real sister—had she stayed here in theton. Her parents deprived her of the right to know her sister.Hope, she reminded herself.
Would she recognize Hope if she saw her in the midst of her new life in theton? They were twins, after all. Theresa thoughtperhaps they would share similar traits. The shape of their eyes, their confident voices.
If she had heard her sister call to her, would she have known the voice instinctively?
When her mother arrived to retrieve her, she had not recognized her and would not have guessed that the woman was her mother. Perhaps it would be similar in the event of meeting her sister. After all, Hope would act with the poise of a woman raised in a noble family.
Certainly, that was not something Theresa could imitate.
Who would she talk to in the empty rooms of Blackwell Manor? There was Juliette and the Dowager Duchess, but they were two people in a large house. She needed to find an ally, a friend, sooner rather than later. If she were to stay here, she needed someone like Margaret to confide in. How else could she talk about what happened last night?
Determined to make friends with the few people who were here, she followed the servants down to the breakfast room, where she found Juliette and the Dowager Duchess seated and laughing about something or other.
The sound made her heart ache with loneliness.
Would she ever laugh again with someone so close to her? She should have had that with her family, but she feared she wouldnever see the Marchioness again. Plus, she had met her father only briefly, and her sister was nowhere to be found.
Who was left to love her besides the Duke and his family? They had been thrown together because of the Queen’s edict, not because they loved each other.
