Page 32 of The Duke's Forbidden Bride
His tone was low and authoritative, but not as threatening as she had feared it would be. It was a mere, gentle warning.
“I want Charlotte to be safe. I also want the same for you. That requires you to keep yourself out of my business.”
“Yourbusiness?” she echoed, stunned.
“Yes,” he snapped. “My business.”
“You are so controlling,” she huffed, her eyes narrowing. “But I daresay that is no revelation to you. You have not granted me a single measure of agency. Has it not occurred to you that what I might need—what might keep me sane—is a fragment of my own control? In mere days, I have gone from a girl who was denied the dignity of being called a ‘lady’ to a duchess. Can you truly blame me for feeling adrift—unmoored—and wanting, just once, the assurance that my friend is safe? Especially when I have already lost her once before?”
She knew her words had gotten through to him. A muscle twitched in his jaw, fluttering, and she refused to look away. Refused to back down.
A few minutes passed in that tense, unbearable silence. Eleanor’s frustration rose. She felt the urge to leave the dining room altogether.
“Speak to me,” she pressed. “You had plenty to say when you planned my future.”
“I am planning it to protect you. I have kept my sister safe for her entire life,” the Duke bit out, his voice taking on a dangerous edge. “Do not question my ability to do so. Charlotteiswell, and sheissafe, and she will be monitored by my aunt as well.”
Eleanor bit back the urge to remark—acidly—that he would know well enough how that arrangement worked, considering it was precisely how Charlotte had been raised. But she held her tongue. She did not know him well enough to discern the limits of his restraint, nor when it was unwise to test them.
Still fixing him with a harsh glare, she sipped more wine and set her glass down harder than necessary.
“Fine. Charlotte is safe, as you say. In the meantime, what am I to do?”
The Duke furrowed his brow, as though confused by her question. He looked around the dining room and gave a short laugh. “You are to enjoy your life. Be a duchess. Take back the autonomy you desire and take everything you were denied for three years. For perhaps even longer.”
“So I am to sit around in beautiful dresses and pretend as though nothing is happening?”
“Nothingishappening, Duchess,” he emphasized, the title a reminder of his warning. “At least not where you are concerned.”
The message was clear: she was no longer to concern herself with Lord Belgrave or Lord Follet. Everything would now be handled by the Duke. She was merely an ornament in the empty, sweeping Everdawn estate.
She shot to her feet. Anger flared in her chest at the simple dismissal, as though she was nothing to him—nothing to his sister’s safety.
Had she not warned him… She dreaded to imagine what would have happened.
Eleanor stomped out of the dining room. As soon as she stepped into her chamber, she found a note on the bed along with a key. Elegant yet masculine script swept across the card in black ink.
For the connecting door. You have nothing to fear here.– SV.
SV. Spencer Vanserton.
It struck her that he signed it so casually. Perhaps that was his attempt to comfort her. Her words had finally struck something within him—something that had seemed vulnerable during their night at the inn.
Without wasting another moment, Eleanor locked the connecting door.
Morning breaking over Everdawn was something to behold. Eleanor turned her attention to the windows in the breakfast room, watching as the sunlight set the maple trees aglow, almost like little flames catching all around them.
How could such a beautiful place have such a disinterested, unfeeling master?
She bit into a piece of toast, savoring the crunch. The butter melted on her tongue, and all the while, she was aware of those honey-brown eyes on her.
The Duke methodically ate his breakfast, not once stopping her from taking many generous helpings.
“How did you sleep?” he asked.
“Very well,” she answered, her tone stiff but polite. “Better than at my parents’ townhouse.”
“Good,” he said.
