Page 92 of Married to a Frozen Duke
"It's what I see. You've been responsible for all of this"—she gestured at the grand room—"for so long, you've forgotten how to just be."
"And your brothers never learned to be anything but."
"They're not bad people."
"I didn't say they were."
"You think it, though. Every time you look at them, you see Coleridge merchants. Climbers. Threats."
"Don't you see Montclaire pride when you look at me? Cold, dismissive aristocracy?"
"Sometimes."
"Only sometimes?"
"Sometimes I see a man who's as trapped as I am."
They stood there, two people beginning to see each other as more than just their names, when Edward's voice rang out from upstairs:
"Phee! There's a portrait of a man with the most enormous mustache I've ever seen! Come look!"
The spell broke. Alexander's expression closed off again.
"Your brothers," he said, as if that explained everything.
"Yes," she agreed sadly. "My brothers."
She got up to go and find the twins, but at the door, she turned back. Alexander was still standing in the drawing room, looking at the little vase of violets with an expression she couldn't quite read.
Tomorrow her brothers would leave, and they'd go back to their cold war. But tonight, for just a moment, she'd thought maybe...
"Phee!" Charles called. "You have to see this mustache! It's magnificent!"
She went to find her brothers, leaving Alexander alone with the violets and his thoughts.
Later, much later, when the house was quiet and she was lying in her enormous bed, she heard something through the connecting door. Footsteps, pacing. Alexander was awake, restless.
She thought about knocking, asking if he was alright. But that would cross a line they'd carefully maintained. So she lay there, listening to him pace, both of them awake and alone with only a door between them.
Tomorrow they'd return to their careful distance.
But tonight had shown her something—they were capable of more than cold formality. When pushed by circumstances (or chaotic twins), they could actually interact almost normally.
It wasn't much, but it was progress.
She fell asleep to the sound of his pacing, and her last thought was of violets and the way he'd looked at them, as if flowers could hold answers to questions he didn't know how to ask.
Chapter Nineteen
"Tell me, Your Grace, how many servants does it really take to maintain one family's comfort? Because I count at least thirty, and that seems rather excessive for two people to be waited upon."
Edward's voice carried across the breakfast table with the kind of casual insolence that made Alexander's hand tighten on his coffee cup until Ophelia feared the delicate china might actually shatter. The morning sun streaming through the breakfast room windows did nothing to warm the arctic atmosphere that had descended the moment her brothers had joined them at the table, despite her explicit request that they maintain some semblance of propriety during their stay.
"The estate employs the necessary number of staff to maintain its operations," Alexander replied, his tone suggesting that the temperature outside might be warmer than his voice, despite the October chill. "The number has been carefully calculated over generations to ensure the smooth running of a house this size."
"Calculated," Charles repeated, spreading marmalade on his toast with unnecessary vigor, getting several drops on the pristine white tablecloth that Ophelia saw Alexander notice with barely suppressed irritation. "Everything here is calculated, isn't it? Even breakfast feels like a military operation with all these footmen standing about watching us eat as if we might steal the silverware."
"Charles," Ophelia said quietly, a warning in her voice that her brother chose to ignore, as she knew he would. Since their arrival yesterday, the twins had been growing increasingly bold in their observations about Montclaire House and its master, and she could feel the tension building.
