Page 53 of Wedded to the Beastly Duke
“What else is there for him to do but attend with his wife?”
Aurelia and Emmeline exchanged significant looks, and Emmeline decided the best course of action was to change subjects. She towed them across the ballroom, ignoring when her mother attempted to launch into another complaint.
“Never mind,” she said. “I know you wish me home, and I wish that too. My attempts at persuading the Duke we are ill-suited have failed, but I will try again, never fear. There are always different approaches. The curtains failed, but perhaps if I alter his bedchamber and redecorate there, or his study, he may see reason. No matter what, Aurelia, I will find a way of returning to you and seeing you both properly again.”
“I do hope so,” her mother said with an exaggerated sniff. “I simply do not know how we get by without you.”
“It is a trial,” Aurelia said, although that was likely because their mother’s complaining had fallen on her ears alone, and she had no other recourse but to bear it all. “We miss you terribly.”
“I miss you too,” Emmeline said, hugging her sister close.
Over Aurelia’s shoulder, she saw Adam, closer than she had realized, watching her with an inscrutable, blank expression on his face. She offered him a smile, which he didn’t return, but Aurelia was already pulling back, distracting her, and she stopped thinking of him as she finally, after a month of separation, had a chance to spend time with her sister.
After some time, Rickard approached, and she introduced him to her family. As always, he was charming in all the ways Adam wasn’t, complimenting Aurelia, a move certain to go down well with both her and their mother, and saying all the right things.
“It’s a pleasure to meet the family of such a wonderful lady,” he said in his soft Scottish burr. “I wonder, Your Grace, if you might be inclined to dance the next set with me?”
“I’m afraid she is already taken,” said a familiar voice to her left, and Emmeline turned to find Adam looming over them, not a smile on his face.
“What are you doing?” she hissed as he led her, once again, to the dance floor.
“Dancing with my wife. It’s the waltz.” He held her possessively close. “Is that such a crime?”
“But why would you insist on dancing with me again? You already claimed the first two dances.”
“There’s no rule to say a gentleman may not dance with his wife more than once.” Adam’s jaw was clenched, his eyes hard, and she recognized from experience that this was not a subject on which he might be tempted to budge.
Then again, Emmeline couldn’t bring herself to care. In polite company such as this, the waltz was as close as they could come to being intimately close, and the feeling of his hand on her waist, sinking through the flimsy layers of material, was enough to make her knees melt.
“You are delectable,” he growled, sounding almost as though this was a revelation, and the knowledge of it irritated him. “Every eye is on you tonight.”
She blushed. “I doubtthat, Your Grace.”
“Adam.”
“Adam.” His name sounded soft and familiar on her tongue, and by the way his eyes darkened, she was made to think of how intimate their given names were, how few people she allowed to say hers, and now no one said it the way he did.
Now, she wondered if he felt the same.
“Are you jealous?” she asked teasingly.
“Of every man here.”
The stark honesty in his answer made her start, and he tightened his grip on her hand. “Truly?”
He gave a stern, sharp nod. “Are you so unhappy here with me?”
“What makes you say that?” She cocked her head as she looked up at him. “Do I strike you as unhappy?”
“I know you’ve tried to leave in the past, and you’ll try again.”
“Adam…” Understanding softened her tone. “My family misses me.”
“You are mywife, Emmeline.” He relaxed his hand, but his jaw was tight. “But I don’t want you to be unhappy, trapped with me. Whatever else you believe, I hope you believe that.”
“My family was concerned about me,” she said after a moment’s consideration, “but I told them there was nothing to worry about.”
“You also told them that you would endeavor to leave me by any means possible.”
