Page 75 of A Gamble with the Rakish Duke
“Don’t know what to say, Alexandra?” her father sneered.
“I’ll pay Lockwood. You can rest assured,” she said. “Please don’t hurt John or Oliver.”
“Ah. Hurt? There are many ways to hurt a man. Like ruining his reputation, for example. Prescott will lose his students andpatrons if they find out what he is,” Lord Hartwell said, his voice dripping with disdain. “As for your dear husband, he’d see that marrying you was a futile attempt to fix his reputation. His business partners may not be too happy about dealing with a liar. A liar who cannot control his wife.”
“I will pay his debts,” a voice boomed from behind John.
Chapter Thirty-One
Oliver was rattled. It was why he didn’t see the carriage right away. It was right there, its colors blending with the rest of Lord Hartwell’s dreary townhouse.
He swore that his sigh of relief could be heard from across town. His chest felt lighter after that as he jogged toward Hartwell’s house.
Rusty railings and wilting bushes decorated the front, suggestive of how Hartwell’s life had fallen apart because of his vices. Oliver thought of the times he had almost ruined his life and thanked his lucky stars that he was able to turn his life around.
His first lucky star was Catherine.
The other one was Alexandra.
She was here, confronting or being confronted by her father. She shouldn’t have to be here alone, without protection. Oliver knewHartwell enough to know that he didn’t want his wife exposed to his abusive nature. Not again, anyway.
Oliver didn’t need to be announced. He took some banknotes and handed them to the butler. When the manservant quickly accepted the money, Oliver couldn’t help but shake his head in an odd mix of relief and disgust.
It was so typical, he supposed. Hartwell’s servants were just like their master—disloyal.
He’d been to this place before. It was only once or twice, but it had left a mark on him. It led to a series of events that he thought he would regret. In the end, though, he could not regret marrying Alexandra.
In fact, he was regretting telling her to leave.
There were fleeting moments when he thought he would be happier without her, but whenever he thought of her, he would feel slightly annoyed but never truly angry. It was like he had a slight inconvenience in the countryside, but it also saved him from some women.
Whenever a woman approached him then, he had a reason to stay away.
“I’m married, don’t you know? My Duchess simply wants a little break from the ton.”
The oohs and aahs were often laughable as women tried to disguise their disappointment with something else. But he also knew that there was greed behind it. They wanted to marry a duke for the title. Or perhaps they only wanted him for his body. There was never an interest in getting to know him better.
As with Alexandra? She didn’t even want to see him. That was why she was the perfect choice.
Today, though, he wasn’t certain he could settle for the aloof and distant façade she often presented to others. He wanted more of her. Not just her body or her music, butallof her.
His thoughts were interrupted when he heard voices in the parlor. He was startled to see that Prescott was standing by the door.
Instead of rushing to confront the man, he stopped when he heard the other voices in the room. Hartwell. Alexandra. They were all there.
It really was a confrontation.
He listened. He heard Hartwell threaten both Prescott and Alexandra. Oliver felt pity for the man he used to be jealous of. It must be hard not to tell other people about the person you love. Right now, he just wanted to grab his wife and tell her what he had slowly come to realize—that he loved her and must have done so for a long time.
He wanted everyone to know, but he knew that Prescott didn’t have that good fortune.
“He never tried to control me, and that makes him a better man,” his wife said.
His chest tightened at the way she defended him, even though he had told her to leave. He didn’t give her a chance to tell him what was going on. Yet, she apparently still held him in high regard when he could have easily told her father that he would not help him.
Hartwell’s behavior made Oliver’s jaw clench. He felt like he was in Devil’s Draw again, in the midst of the cheering and jeering. Whenever he was there, his only desire was to feel the physical pain to forget the emotional one. The urge was to punch and overpower.
At that moment, he felt something else. The desire to hit was no longer about getting rid of his pain, but to get rid ofhis wife’s pain.
