Page 74 of A Virgin for the Duke of Depravity
“You are a duchess,” he said, enunciating each word. “You are free to go where you please, both in the estate and otherwise. If the girls are in your charge, I will leave you.”
He turned and stalked out of the room just as suddenly as he had come.
Margaret felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. She might be a duchess now, but she could not have the one thing she truly wanted—her husband’s affection.
She turned her attention back to the girls, who were watching her carefully. Setting down her punch on the table in front of her, she gave them her full attention and asked them what they would like to do for the rest of the day.
“Are you avoiding our uncle?” Kitty asked.
Margaret hesitated before responding, “Why would you ask that question?”
“Because he seems to leave as soon as he comes in. It is how he has always treated us, but he has not done it to you since you came,” Annie said, downing the rest of her juice.
“We are not avoiding each other,” Margaret assured her.
The girls looked at one another, and Margaret wished she knew what they were thinking. They were more astute than she had thought. She and Leo would only be able to avoid each other for so long while Annie and Kitty roamed the estate.
They would have to be together soon enough.
And Margaret could not wait.
Leo should have known that Margaret would take up with the girls now that she lived at Devishire Mansion. On the one hand, he was grateful that the girls had someone other than Joan who knew how to care for them.
While Joan did an excellent job corralling them, she was getting older, and the girls grew more mischievous every day. With her back pain, Leo knew that it would not be long before she had to retire.
Margaret was a natural choice as their caregiver. That meant that he did not need to worry about Annie and Kitty, but it also meant that there were endless places in his home where he could not go anymore. In fact, the only place he could truly be alone was in his study at Olympus.
He decided he would spend the evening there, but there were a few things he needed to take care of at the mansion first.
First, he needed to contact the dressmaker to pay Margaret a visit and take her measurements. The Duchess needed gowns that fit her, not the old dresses that Theresa had outgrown as her pregnancy progressed.
He penned a note on parchment and sent it off with a footman.
With that out of the way, he thought of all the notes he would need to send to make Margaret feel at home here. Certainly, she would want to make some changes to her rooms. He had no need of the dowry provided by the Queen, and she could use the funds to make changes.
Perhaps he would make a trip to the art gallery and pick out a new painting for her. Maybe he could commission Aaron to paint something that he thought Margaret would like. A Biblical scene, he thought. Something that would befit a woman who came so close to taking her vows.
On his way to Olympus, he would stop by Blackwell Manor and talk to Aaron. He decided he would leave earlier than planned, all the better to see if Theresa and Aaron could convince Margaret to be as happy here as she could be.
“She will never be happy here,” he said quietly to his reflection in the mirror as he straightened the lapels of his jacket. “Not with a Beast for a husband.”
But part of him did not truly believe those words. Margaret had seemed perfectly content with him when he threw open the doors to the ballroom her grandfather had held her in. She had stopped shaking when he wrapped his arms around her.
The feel of her in his arms was one that he could not easily forget. Just as he could not seem to forget the way she felt straddling his hips as he stroked her bud with his thumb. The way she threw her head back and exposed the tender skin of her throat when she came undone for him.
I need to banish that thought for good.
He could not go to Olympus in this state, not with his manhood straining against the fly of his pants. It would be embarrassing to have the entire ton know that he was unsatisfied with his wife.
That their marital bliss had ended so quickly. That their marital bliss had neverbegun.That he had never laid hands on her last night, even though every fiber of his being had imagined what she would be doing. Her pale skin in the moonlight. Her nightgown tossed on the floor beside her bed.
Of course, he wanted to take her. He had wanted to take her for as long as he had known her. That much, at least, he could not deny.
He poured himself a glass of whiskey and took a long sip. The amber liquid burned down his throat, which only seemed fitting, since every part of him seemed to burn with desire for his wife.
“Enough,” he snapped, slamming the glass back down on the table. Drops of whiskey flew from the glass and spotted his white shirt beneath the dark jacket.
Leo hung his head and ran a hand through his hair.
