Page 25 of Married to the Icy Duke
“No, now, if you please. It cannot wait. May I come in?”
“No, you may not.”
Charlotte flinched. She hadn’t expected a refusal.
What are my choices? I stand here and beg? Do I walk away? No, I don’t think so.
Clenching her jaw, she placed her hand around the doorknob and turned it. She had mostly expected the door to be locked, but instead it opened easily. She found herself looking into a large, square room, served by a surprisingly small bed pushed into the corner. She had expected opulence, but was instead greeted by Spartan simplicity.
Directly in front of her, standing before a mirror and a washbasin full of water, stood the Duke of Arkley.
He wore no shirt, only a pair of tight breeches and an unbuckled belt. He held a cloth in one hand and seemed to be in the process of sponging streaks of blood off his bare chest.
Charlotte’s breath caught in her throat. His torso was marvelously sculpted, covered in discreet trails of soft darkhair. Waterdrops dappled on his bare shoulders and trickled languidly down the rounded planes of his chest and stomach. Charlotte’s lungs appeared to have stopped working. Heat rushed downwards, pooling between her legs in a way she had never quite felt before. She opened her mouth, but to her horror, not a single word made its way past her lips.
The duke was staring at her, of course, his one good eye dark and a little angry. At last, he broke the taut silence.
“Are you usually in the habit of disregarding the wordno, my dear?” he drawled at last, dropping the wet cloth back into the basin with asplash.
Charlotte swallowed hard.
“N-No, of course not, but this is important.”
“I imagine it must be,” he responded, wringing out the cloth and drawing it across his collarbones. She saw that the splashes of blood there were dried, requiring a little scrubbing to remove them. She swallowed.
“Whose blood is that?”
“Not mine, if that is what concerned you,” Isaac responded, catching her eye through the mirror. “I attended my club earlier. The Devils are famous for our boxing, you see, and I engaged in a few matches. I won, by the way. I have no intention of greetingmy nephew covered in blood, hence the wash. I will continue, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course I don’t … don’t mind,” Charlotte stammered, aware that blood was rushing into her face. She could feel the heat in her cheek and knew that she was blushing, no doubt as red as beets, and there was no way he could not notice. But she was here now, and the only thing more humiliating than all of this would be to run away without saying what she had come here to say. “I came to find you because you did not greet us.”
“No, I did not.”
“Am I correct in guessing that you instructed your housekeeper to inform me of the ‘rules’ which I must live by?”
His sharp eyes found hers once more through the mirror. “Perhaps. I thought it would be simpler.”
She clenched her teeth. “Well, you were wrong. If you wanted a quiet, obedient bride, you made the wrong choice. I am not going to starve all evening simply because you like to have your dinner at seven o’clock. What is wrong with dinner at five and then supper at ten?”
“Perhaps I do not like to be tied to a dining table so frequently,” he responded tartly. “You can eat when you like, my dear. I am not starving you. But dinnerwilltake place at seven.”
She folded her arms. “Six.”
He dropped the cloth back into the basin and turned to face her. Water splashed up onto the mirror, dripping down again.
“Are you trying tohagglewith me?” he murmured softly. “You are causing me problems already, my lady. We are not even married yet.”
Charlotte held her ground, as best she could. Despite her best efforts, her eyes kept drifting down to his bare chest, drops traveling down his stomach and disappearing beneath the waistband of his breeches. She swallowed thickly.
“This is an important conversation. Please put on a shirt, can’t you?”
He gave a twisted grin. “If my bare skin offends you, my dear, I suggest you avoid ogling me.”
She reddened further, if that was possible. “I am notoglingyou!”
“The evidence suggests otherwise.”
Charlotte breathed out slowly.
