Page 8 of The Duke's Return
Still, they were nothing Genevieve had not heard before. “I know. But it doesn’t matter. None of it matters. I only wish he would go away. I’m finally comfortable in the house and I’ve come to enjoy my life. What if he takes it away? What if he forces me out? Good lord, he might install a mistress there.”
“I thought you don’t care.”
“I care about my reputation,” Genevieve corrected her. “I can be seen as an eccentric and a recluse. Those are acceptable because I still attend a few parties, and I serve on three humanitarian boards. But anything worse would surely hurt my sisters. My family.”
If only he hadn’t returned. I was so relieved to find him gone.
“It must have been quite nice,” Phoebe noted, telling Genevieve she must have said those last words aloud. The flush was ignored this time. “I know how you enjoy your peace. Perhaps you can still keep it. Has he said why he returned? For what purpose?”
She frowned. “Some matter of purpose. But he has countless men of business to address such issues. I don’t understand it. Or him. And I don’t like it.”
“Or him?” her friend prompted.
Deciding not to answer that particular question, Genevieve hastily fanned herself. It bothered her wrist but the flush kept growing the more she thought about her husband. How silly it was to even call him that. But she didn’t like calling him by his title. And they were too much of strangers to use his Christian name. Julian. She fanned herself harder.
“Well, something brought him back here,” Phoebe said at last. She grinned. “You will have to ask him. How exciting! You can face him down and, if he makes up some ridiculous excuse, you can tell him off. You said it’s your home and not his. Tell him to leave. My mother told my father to do that once, I recall. I didn’t see him for four months. It was quite humorous.”
“What if I want him gone longer than that?” Genevieve muttered.
“Then tell him!”
That made her stop. She couldn’t even think about… what would she say? Good lord, what wouldhesay? Her stomach dropped. Anything could happen. Oh, if her mother ever found out… “I could never.”
“You could say something. It’s not always about being outright honest, dear. Sometimes you have to play with your words. Like a writer does in telling you a story that isn’t real. Create a reason for him to go if that’s what it takes you.”
“Could I really do that?” she wondered aloud. “I wonder what it would take to convince him to leave again…”
Holding back a laugh, her friend gave a sharp nod. “Precisely! Don’t let your fear win, Gen. Or you will never be anything but small and disposable.”
“How horrid you make marriage sound!” Genevieve stared at her, appalled.
“It will be if you do not try. Besides, my dear… maybe he does want to be with you, and he only doesn’t know how to say it? Men can be dullards and fools, too,” Phoebe said with a wink. She was clearly more amused than worried about what this might all mean for Genevieve.
If only she could feel that way as well. But she listened and reflected and, by the time she returned home, Genevieve had Phoebe’s courage ringing in her ears. The gallery had long since been forgotten.
This is my life. My home. I am a duchess, and no one has the right to come in and ruin what I have built here.
And she promptly stubbed her toes on a chest upon entering. “Oh! Mrs. Culpepper, what in good heavens is happening here?”
The housekeeper straightened from where she was reorienting a few hatboxes. Her hair was coming undone and the expression on her face told Genevieve the woman had been hard at work for some time, clearly distracted. “Oh! Your Grace. Thank the lord you’ve returned. It would appear you’re moving.”
“Me?” Genevieve asked incredulously. “Where? Why?”
Dabbing her forehead with a kerchief, the housekeeper said, “I could hardly know. The duke told us to start packing. The two of you are expected to be on the road tomorrow morning.”
“That is… I didn’t… what balderdash! I didn’t approve any such trip,” Genevieve said in a huff. Her eyes took in the scene and she only felt her shoulders grow stiffer and stiffer. A wire seemed to snap inside her. “This will not do.”
Off she went at once, searching through the house for her supposed husband. It was a lengthy process that left her time to worry about what might happen next. Her heart pounded. She felt the world unraveling at her fingertips no matter how tightly she might wish to cling to it.
What happens if I let go?
Finally Genevieve had to ask a servant where to find her husband, which only served to further frustrate her.
He was in his study. She stormed in at once. The doors banged around noisily. But as fierce as she hoped to appear, the duke merely lifted his head.
“Ah.” His lips curled into that familiar smile. “My dear wife.”
Why do you use that term? Do you even know my name? Oh what a mockery we make of that which we call marriage.
