Page 15 of Her Duke By Accident
Matthew leaned down toward the top of her head, and said, “there are eyes upon us, my lady.” He hooked her arm in a loop around his own, her palm against his wrist, where he held his arm for her, tucked neatly against his side. The action pulled them closer to the other. “Despite all the things we want to say to the other,” he said through the corner of his mouth, “we must refrain when the ton is so curious to hear what we have to say.”
Alicia let him pull her along the path as the anger simmered. “You’re right,” she muttered.
A quiet spread between them, only the birdsong and other conversations filling the space.
“You never answered me before,” Alicia said.
“And what would that be?”
She swallowed. “If you find no comfort in marriage due to… pleasures… elsewhere.”
An amused smirk slipped onto Matthew’s lips. “No, my lady.”
“No, what?”
Matthew turned away, as though he had decided to speak no more.
“We are going to be wed,” Alicia said.
“I know.”
“Spending a lifetime in one’s home might implore you to talk with one another,” Alicia continued.
“I am not an unsocialized recluse, my lady.”
Alicia groaned with irritation. “Why must you jump to such assumptions? I never said such a thing.”
Matthew remained silent, his grip stiff around her arm. He struggled to formulate words as they neared a gazebo buried in a thicket of trees. “There are more important things for a man than physical pleasures.”
Alica frowned. “Like what?”
“Succession.”
“How do you intend to do that without a marriage?”
“Building a life for those coming after you has nothing to do with marriage. For some it might, but not here. Not for me, and not for—” Matthew cut himself off. He turned, looking ahead once more. “Not for me, my lady.”
Curiosity nipped at Alicia’s toes. She wanted nothing more than to pry, to learn something new about the angry and cold duke. There was obviously something being left unsaid, but their marriage could reveal secrets if she played her cards right. “What will this be, Your Grace?” she asked as they walked through the entrance of a gazebo that overlooked Walton Gardens.
“Hm?”
“Our marriage,” she said. “What will it be to you?”
“A contract.”
Alicia looked down at her feet.
“What did you expect me to say?” he said, almost exasperatedly, as though it was not what he truly wanted. “You think I share a sliver of my thoughts, and that our relationship has changed? We walk here today in order totrickthe ton. If you want to walk away unscathed as the Duchess of Garvey, with your family name secured alongside mine, and your debts and misdoings settled, you must accept that this is a business matter, and it will never be more than that. Not for me.”
Something struck a chord within him. He held her gaze now with an intensity that could’ve made her bow. “Be glad you caught a perfect victim, my lady,” he said. “You will be secured for life. I get nothing more than an extra mouth to feed.”
Alicia froze in her path. Matthew got yanked backwards, their arms still tucked neatly together against his side. He pulled his arm away from her in response, his eyebrows furrowed in irritation. They stood at the center of the gazebo, the afternoon sunlight not reaching them from beneath it. Tucked from view, the chaperoning group seemed to have fallen behind, still on one of the garden’s many pathways.
Alicia breathed deeply. “How many times must I say this to you?”
“My lady?—”
“No,” Alicia said. “Now you will listen to me. You know nothing of that night, of my actions within that ball. You have accused me and my family of our goal to be trapping a man in a loveless marriage. All you know of my name is that of my father, and the mistakes he made in his last days. Every other moment of his life was spent doing nothing other than loving his family. That is all I know, Your Grace. And it is all I look for in my future.”
