Page 4 of Married to a Frozen Duke
Then chaos erupted.
"Marriage?" Charles knocked over his glass.
"To a Coleridge?" Edward shot to his feet.
"To our sister?" Robert's voice could have shattered crystal.
Ophelia very carefully did not look up, though she felt their eyes turn toward her one by one, as if they'd just rememberedshe existed. The forgotten Coleridge daughter, suddenly remembered at the worst possible moment.
"This is about Aunt Cordelia," Henry said quietly, and the room stilled. "This is their twisted idea of... what? Atonement?"
"It's revenge," Robert corrected harshly. "Pure and simple. They want to humiliate us again. Take another Coleridge woman and..."
"And what?" Mrs. Coleridge's voice was surprisingly steady. "Marry her? Make her a duchess? How terribly insulting."
"You can't be serious," Robert turned to stare at his mother.
"I'm merely pointing out that as revenge goes, it seems rather poorly thought out."
"The new Duke has to marry her," Edward said slowly, as if working through a puzzle. "Has to. Or he loses everything."
"Exactly." Henry's smile was sharp as glass. "The mighty Duke of Montclaire, forced to come begging for a common Coleridge bride. Oh, this is delicious."
Ophelia found her voice, though she kept it carefully neutral. "I don't suppose anyone thought to ask if I have an opinion on the matter?"
They all turned to look at her for perhaps the first time in months.
"Opinion?" Robert said blankly, as if the concept of her having opinions was entirely foreign.
"Yes. An opinion. About being married off to settle a forty-year-old feud that started before I was born."
"Well, obviously you can't marry him," Charles said, as if this were the most natural conclusion in the world.
"Obviously," she repeated dryly. "How foolish of me not to realise."
"He's a beast," Edward added helpfully. "Cold, arrogant, probably sleeps on a bed of money just to remind himself how rich he is."
"You've met him?" she asked mildly.
"Don't need to. You can tell just by looking at him. He walks like he owns the world."
"He owns half of Kent," Henry pointed out. "So he's not entirely wrong."
"We shall refuse," Robert declared with the authority of someone used to having his declarations treated as law. "I'll write back immediately and tell them..."
"Tell them what?" She set down her flowers entirely, folding her hands in her lap. "That Miss Coleridge declines? On what grounds? That her brothers object?"
"On the grounds that it's insulting!"
"To whom?" She met his gaze steadily. "To me? Or to you?"
Robert's mouth opened and closed like a landed fish.
"Because," she continued in the same mild tone, "it seems to me that I'm the one being offered a duchy, while you're the ones being offered the chance to watch a Montclaire grovel. I'm not entirely certain who should be more insulted."
"You can't actually be considering this," Henry said, studying her with newfound interest.
"I'm considering very little at the moment, as no one has actually asked me anything." She returned to her flowers, though her hands weren't quite as steady as before. "The Duke hasn't called. No proposal has been made. You're all getting rather ahead of yourselves."
