Page 106 of Married to a Frozen Duke
Something flickered across his face at the mention of solicitors, a tightening around his eyes that suggested she'd said something that affected him.
"Oh yes," she continued, emboldened by his reaction. "I know all about your late-night legal consultation. Tell me, have you found it yet? The loophole you're looking for?"
"What loophole?"
"Don't play ignorant with me, Alexander. I heard enough last night—'inheritance,' 'legal challenge,' 'documentation required.' You're looking for a way out, aren't you? A way to dissolve this marriage without losing your precious estate."
His face had gone very still, that particular stillness that meant she'd either hit upon exactly the truth or missed it so completely that he didn't know how to respond.
"My legal affairs are not your concern," he said finally.
"Your legal affairs regarding our marriage are very much my concern! Or were you planning to have me served with annulment papers over breakfast one morning? 'Pass the marmalade, and by the way, our marriage is dissolved'?"
"That's not..." He stopped, ran his hand through his hair in that gesture of frustration she'd come to recognize. "You don't understand what you're talking about."
"Then explain it to me! Tell me why you had solicitors here until dawn discussing our marriage!"
"They weren't discussing our marriage."
"Don't lie to me, Alexander. I may be a common Coleridge, but I'm not a fool. What else would require such urgent legalconsultation the day after you threw my brothers out and practically admitted this marriage is doomed?"
He moved to the window, his back to her, and she could see the tension in every line of his body. "You're right about one thing. I was discussing legal matters regarding our marriage."
Her heart sank even as she'd expected it. "So you are looking for an annulment."
"I'm looking for options."
"Options. How diplomatic. And what options have your solicitors found? Can you claim non-consummation? Fraud? My unfitness as a duchess? What grounds are you planning to use to rid yourself of your Coleridge burden?"
He turned to face her, and his expression was unreadable. "Does it matter? If I could free you from this marriage, would you want it?"
The question hit her like a physical blow. Would she want it? Freedom from this cold house, this impossible situation, this man who looked at her and saw only problems and disappointments?
"Would you?" she asked instead of answering.
"I asked you first."
"And I'm asking you now. If you could dissolve this marriage tomorrow with no consequences, would you?"
They stared at each other across his study, two people trapped by law and circumstance and their own inability to bridge the gap between their worlds.
"My brothers were right, weren't they?" she said when he didn't answer. "I'm disappearing here. Becoming less myself every day, trying to fit into your world, your expectations. And you're helping me disappear because that's easier than actually seeing me."
"I see you," he said quietly.
"No, you see a Coleridge. A problem to be managed. You don't see Ophelia."
"And you see what? A tyrant? A monster? The villain in your story of common virtue versus aristocratic vice?"
"I see a man so afraid of feeling anything that he's turned himself into stone. And now you're trying to turn me into stone too."
"I'm trying to help you adapt."
"You're trying to erase me! Every correction, every reminder about proper behaviour, every disapproving look when I show warmth or kindness or humanity—you're trying to sand away everything that makes me who I am until there's nothing left but the perfect, empty duchess you need me to be."
"That's not true."
"Then why are you meeting with solicitors? Why are you looking for a way out?"
