Page 46 of A Virgin for the Duke of Scars
“But they had another daughter hidden away. In a convent, of all places,” he finished.
“You married a nun?” Leo burst out laughing. “Tell us, is she responsive in bed?”
“She was supposed to become a woman of the cloth, but she ended up with a devil like me. She has much to learn about high society, not to mention her role as my wife.”
“It seems that she likes you well enough. The two of you were quite close in the park earlier today,” Morgan noted, a smirk on his handsome face.
“And she is fond of me, despite the odds,” Aaron said, a hint of disbelief in his voice.
At that moment, an old man came to sit beside them.
The Dukes found his imposition inconvenient, but Aaron’s anger flared immediately when he saw who it was.
He wasn’t just any old man, trying to ingratiate himself with the younger crowd, to make himself feel a bit younger. That faux pas could have been forgiven, and the group may have even bought him a pint of ale.
No, this man was the father of his ex-fiancée. Before the edict. Before Hope and, later, Theresa. Earl Ashton had somehow mistaken this gathering for an opportunity to bask in the youth of the Dukes of theton. He was the last person Aaron wanted to see, second only to the Earl’s daughter.
“It seems congratulations are in order, Your Grace,” he said.
“So they are,” Aaron answered coolly.
Despite his anger, it would not do to ignore the man. He was still a peer, no matter how sullied his name may have been when the engagement was broken off.
Aaron would never hear the end of it from his grandmother if he were rude.
“I suppose fate did not want us to become a family,” Earl Ashton said.
“It had nothing to do with fate,” Aaron bit out.
The Earl’s mouth dropped open in surprise at Aaron’s plain disdain. He was not the kind of man used to being contradictedor disrespected. But Aaron was a beast in every sense of the word. He had no time for small talk.
“I’m glad you found a worthy wife,” Earl Ashton said instead of calling Aaron on his deplorable manners.
His tone suggested that he thought the whole affair a joke, and not in the way Aaron’s friends had.
He knew the story of the Marquess’s lost daughter. He knew that Aaron had been spurned twice.
He settled in with his pint, as if he planned to spend the night with their small gathering. If he had more to say, Aaron did not want to hear it. There was nothing he could say to fix what had happened a long time ago.
Unable to stomach the idea of sitting with him, Aaron knocked back his whiskey and stood up.
“Excuse me, but I must return to my wife,” he said, before making his way to the exit.
When he got to the door, he paused just outside to take a deep breath of fresh air. He had a long walk back to the manor, but he was grateful for the solitude, the steady rhythm of putting one foot in front of the other.
True, he had been promised to another in the past. Now, he could not imagine being married to anyone but the little nunwho had caught his attention. He had no idea if she would be able to stand his attention a year or a decade from now.
But he hoped that she would. That she would always look at him with the same wonder and amazement that this was her life. In time, the small things would become less wonderful, but he hoped that being able to do them together would sustain the magic.
He kicked a rock that tumbled across his path when a carriage passed by.
He would start to ride in the carriage with his wife, he decided. It was not fair to deprive her of the joy of riding when he was free to ride his stallion whenever and wherever.
There were many things he would need to change to give her the life she deserved.
He pondered these things on the way back to the manor. When he arrived, he took care to avoid the servants and quietly slipped up the stairwell that led to the Duchess’s Suite.
There’s nothing to be ashamed of.I am permitted to bid my wife goodnight.
