Page 30 of When her Duke Returns
Alexander watched them for a moment before the singularity of his situation dawned upon him. He had not been alone with Antony in years, and he hadn’t spent any time in his close company since the ball. If he were not afraid for Mary’s safety, he might have jumped at the man there and then to put an end to things. He expected Antony to take off without him, if only out of fear, but he did not. In fact, he stood his ground quite resolutely, stealing glances at Alexander as if he was preparing for a hunt.
“So,” Antony huffed, and it startled the Duke greatly.
Alexander didn’t know whether the man intended to converse, but he was not keen on the idea regardless. There was nothing to be said between them that would not end poorly with secrets beyond counting lying in wait ready to be unleashed in the heat of a moment.
Besides, Alexander preferred biased silence to the possibility of coming to some sort ofresolution. If he made peace with the man, if it transpired that he was not the devil incarnate as Alexander thought him to be, his affection for Mary would be further tainted.
“So,” Alexander echoed to test the field, praying under his breath that the man would let him go quietly. Antony’s jaw set to stone as he came to stand before the Duke, his hands balled into fists.
“If you’re going to strike me, get on with it that I might be done with you,” Alexander stated. He didn’t want to rouse the man’s anger, but he would not stand for threats.
Antony shut his eyes tightly, and his body loosened. “I am not the savage you think me to be,” he said to the Duke’s surprise. “I find violence a rather inelegant way of dealing with one’s problems.”
Alexander scoffed. “There are times when it is theonlyway to deal with obstacles, to survive. Kill or be killed. You were a soldier; you know the rest.”
The matter of Antony’s time at war was not a commonly known fact, not outside their mutual ring of acquaintance, at least. He had joined the fight four years or so after the Duke and had lasted a mere seven months on the front before succumbing to injury. They had been stationed not far from one another, but their reuniting had been anything but happy. War, it seemed, had changed them both.
“Do not address me as if I were a child, Redgrave. I know of war as well as you,” Antony hissed.
“I do not doubt it. It does not change the fact that fight is within us.”
“Is that why you struck me at our ball, then? Tokill meandsurvive?”
“No. I intended to hurt you, and by the looks of it, I did a bloody good job of it.”Antony laughed—genuinelylaughed. Alexander was sure he had led the man to madness. The Earl dropped his gaze and circled around Alexander like a hawk, settling against an old wooden fence on the very edge of the cliff that looked out over the sea.
This was Alexander’s chance to walk away, but he could not. He knew not whether it was out of curiosity, past friendship, anger, or some deadly combination of them all, but he walked toward Antony and settled beside him along the fence. And there they stood, an earl and a duke in their faded summer clothes despising each other in patient silence.
Antony ran his hands over his face. “I don’t know how you did it.”
“Did what?” Alexander asked, still wary of the man.
“Put up with her, with Mary,” Antony said and swallowed hard. “She can be so cruel when she sets her mind to it and most bent on my humiliation. Her spite is beyond anything I have ever known in a woman.”
“It’s because she does not like you,” the Duke replied. “I know because I too suffered her ire.”
“It’s more than that,” Antony contested, and Alexander froze in place. “Before your return, we were not happy, I shan’t deny it, but she was placated and quiet and obedient. I could deal with Mary when she had nothing to say to me, but now she wants to say it all… and it is all sovicious.” He groaned against a rush of waves. “Our most recent quarrel found root in a passing comment of mine on the subject of our future. She cannot bear to hear of real things, to live in the real world.”
“That is Mary,” Alexander replied. “It is how she has always been: living through fantasy or not living at all. You should know this by now. You have known her as long as I have.”
“I want you to renounce her,” Antony blazoned.
“I have,” Alexander muttered, and looked away.
“I want you to announce it publicly.”
“There is no need to make a show of things. Surely your wedding will be show enough,” Alexander sighed and turned to leave. “There is nothing more I am willing to do to save you from Mary, and nothing more Icando to save Mary from you.”
“Then why is she determined to have you still?”
Alexander’s blood turned to ice in his veins. He had made his affections clear for Mary at the ball, but their shared intimacy since had been a thing of secret and rumor. If the Earl had doubts, he must have uncovered something more.
The Earl continued, “That she should look upon you with anything other than shock and disgust… It defies all reason.”
“That is lunacy,” Alexander retorted feebly and with more bitterness than he intended.
“You spoke of fantasy, did you not? Long had she concerned herself with princes in play and sailors in song. But her desires are no longer intangible as they once were, no longer innocent,” Antony sighed and seemed to calm. “They begin and end with the beast that you have become.”
“Her dislike of you has nothing to do with me. We can debate the truth of her being set on me until we are blue in the face. It does not matter. In the end, she simply wants what she cannot have.”
