Page 58 of Her Duke Next Door
As soon as she said it she could recognize that fear in his eyes only because it mirrored hers. The fear of everything going wrong. Of the past repeating itself. Her heart beat faster, only interrupted by Eloise holding up a fork for her.
“Mama! Try the chocolate cake!”
She could barely tear her gaze away from Dominique. His eyes were so intent, burning into her, and she felt her fear slowly ebb into desire for him. The two girls scrambled up onto their chairs at the table, while Dominique leaned in closer to Mary as the girls chattered away about who would ride Benson first when they returned home.
“Mary,” he whispered. “We both know the fear of the past. But I am glad I make you happy. After all, I have thought of little else since the other night. I would much prefer to feast on you again than cake.”
Then he pulled away, composed once more by the time the girls wanted their attention. Mary was left speechless, desire causing a burn through her body that she did not think she wanted to cool down.
All that was to focus on was the theater soon. Then she would start learning the depths of this handsome man with a dark haunted look often lingering in his eyes.
* * *
As Mary watched a letter burn into ashes in her room, watching the curling handwriting of Hugh, she was distracted by a happy squeal. She waited until the last of the parchment burned. Already that week she had burned three of his letters, all threats, all as disgusting as the last.
Eloise was snatching her hand away from her pony, giggling as she stepped back. “He bit me!”
“He was trying to bite the apple,” Katie scolded her. “It is like this, isn’t it, Papa?”
She demonstrated how to feed Benson the apple but her palm was not out, and the poor pony did not understand to not bite her fingers. Katie, too, yelped and darted back.
“Here, let me show you,” Dominique said, crouching down to the pony’s height. He grasped the apple. By now, the pony would have been taunted.
“I should like to seehimget his hand bitten,” Mary mumbled to herself, smiling. Dominique showed the girls how to lie their hands flat out so the animal could safely eat the offered fruit without getting their fingers chomped on.
“His teeth are so big!” Eloise complained.
“They must be,” Dominique said. “Would you like to eat a whole apple?”
“No,” Eloise pouted. “My teeth are not so big.”
“His teeth adapt to his animal nature,” he told them. “As ours are designed to help us eat our food how we do, animals are designed to enable them to eat the way that they need.”
The two girls frowned, confused, and Mary could not stifle her laugh as she stepped away from the window. It warmed her heart to see Dominique actively trying to spend time with the girls. After yelling at Katie one too many times he had finally gotten the message.
And Mary hoped, deep down, in a small part of her heart, that she might be enough to keep the Duke in the castle. That this family they had put together from a fractured past might be enough to show the Duke what he might leave behind should he go again.
Mary’s lady-in-waiting cleared her throat. “Shall I start preparing your gown, Your Grace?”
“Yes,” she answered. “I wish to wear the blue one.”
“It is a beautiful choice for the theater, Your Grace.” Her lady-in-waiting began to take out her dress from the closet as Mary sat down at her vanity. “What jewelry would you like? There is a lovely diamond necklace in your collection.”
It was from her papa upon her wedding to Patrick but Mary did not want to wear that tonight. She wished to eradicate all materialistic reminders of Patrick. All she wanted to do was focus on her future, as terrifying as that was.
“I wish for a different necklace,” she said. “Perhaps the one the Duke bought me last week. I have not yet worn it.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
Soon, she heard Dominique tell the girls that he must get ready for the evening. As he left, Mary could hear the whisperings of the two girls through the open window. She smiled fondly.
She had a beautiful family now who deserved her full attention. Her ghosts would always linger in the shadows but she did not need to look at them.
* * *
“A Night on the Shore,” Mary read aloud from the poster on the outside of the beautiful theater. “What is it? Is it an opera?”
Dominique showed their tickets to the staff at the door and was shown to their box, high up on the second floor of the theater. “It is a ballet,” he told her. “Set on the Southern Coast of Spain.”
