Page 21 of A Rescue by the Rakish Duke
Damian rose from his chair, trying to use his height and size to intimidate her, but she didn’t even flinch.
She did not step back at all. Instead, she had the gall to jut her chin.
“Perhaps I am obstinate, Your Grace. You’ve helped me, as you said. Now, let me help you. Someone has to stop you from shutting yourself in. Why are you doing this? Do you want tokeep brooding in a stuffy room over plans that you refuse to share? It festers within you, whatever it is. It makes you avoid people. It makes you avoid me—the woman you brought to your estate with your carriage.”
“Enough! I don’t owe you an explanation,” he said in a menacing voice as he strode toward her. “This is my house and my life. You must respect that.”
“Don’t I deserve respect from you, too? I am your wife now, Your Grace, whether you like it or not. You brought this upon yourself when you obtained a quick marriage license. Or do you find me so ghastly that you cannot even bear to remain in the same room with me?”
Her words struck him like a physical blow, her defiance stirring something primal within him that he couldn’t afford to—should never—acknowledge. Even as tension thickened between them, heavy and intoxicating, other things simmered beneath the surface—things Damian refused to confront.
Damn.
His body was reacting to her in ways he should have expected but refused to consider. He was hard.
Fortune continued to smile down at him because she had not noticed. Yet.
He counted in his head, trying to calm the rising storm. His gaze remained on his red-faced wife, even though he had tried not to look at her too closely. Her fury unsettled him, and he noticed the contrast between her flushed cheeks and fair skin. These were details that he had never bothered to pay attention to when he took countless women to his bed.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
He attempted to redirect his thoughts toward Montrose. That bastard had been the source of his control and had kept him focused for a while.
Control. It was his armor. It was the strength that kept up the icy facade that his wife loathed. She shouldn’t think that he could be anything but loathsome.
Tonight, though, the armor was cracked.
Chapter Seven
“The funds are secured,” Evan Drake told Damian. “Evidence has been handed to the right people. Montrose won’t have time to escape when he finally realizes what has happened.”
Damian had been spending a lot of time in his study. Even with the door unlocked, Gwendoline had stopped passing by. He would’ve liked to say that he felt a deep satisfaction after making it clear to his wife that their marriage would never turn into something more, but he only felt a hollow, dull ache in his chest.
What often made him forget the strange ache was getting back to his plan of revenge.
That afternoon, he sat behind the grand desk in his study. His forehead was creased in concentration, and his fingers were steepled as he listened attentively to Evan Drake, his right-hand man, outline the logistics of their plan.
The fire crackled in the hearth, casting shadows over the room, emphasizing the darkness of the paneling and the study altogether. It also highlighted the darkness within the man who owned it.
Damian’s focus was intense. His jaw was clenched so hard that it hurt to open it. He could only imagine what he looked like. Perhaps he looked like granite.
Ha! He was eager to get his revenge plan underway. It had been months in the making.
A man could not live like this forever.
The thought had come unbidden.
Satisfaction rose in his chest, but somehow, he still felt restless. The rage within him continued to burn and roar, constantly reminding him of why he had a mission in the first place.
His thoughts drifted back to Mary and Levi.
The fire in his chest became an inferno.
Montrose was so cruel that he had shattered those two lives. Two lives that continued to haunt Damian’s dreams, urging him to push through with his plan even as he lost every bit of happiness in his life along with it.
Even though his plan seemed to be coming to fruition, and he was closer to his goal than ever, his thoughts kept returning to Gwendoline. He had not seen her for days. It was what he wanted, and yet?—
“Uh, you seem… distracted, Your Grace.” Evan’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
