Page 102 of Married to a Frozen Duke
As she wrote, she heard more voices below, Alexander's among them but others too, official-sounding and serious. Whatever was happening, it was significant enough to require immediate attention despite the late hour.
She paused in her writing, listening, and caught fragments of words drifting up—"inheritance," "legal challenge," "documentation required."
Her blood ran cold. Was someone challenging Alexander's inheritance? Was their marriage being questioned?
She set down her pen, her letter to her brothers forgotten. If their marriage was being challenged, if there was some question about its validity...
She stood, moving toward the door, then stopped. Alexander hadn't sent for her. Whatever was happening, he was handling it alone, as he handled everything. She was his wife in name, but not his partner in dealing with problems.
She returned to her desk, picked up her pen, and continued writing to her brothers. But her mind was on those voices below, on the possibility that their disastrous marriage might have found an unexpected exit.
The thought should have brought relief.
Instead, it brought a confusion of emotions she wasn't ready to examine.
She sealed the letter to her brothers and set it aside to be sent tomorrow, despite Alexander's wishes. Then she sat in the gathering darkness, listening to the murmur of voices below and wondering what new catastrophe was about to befall the unhappy Duke and Duchess of Montclaire.
Whatever it was, she had a feeling it would change everything.
Again.
Chapter Twenty
The morning arrived with a peculiar quality of light that suggested rain before noon, and Ophelia woke with the kind of resolve that only comes from a night spent wrestling with conscience and finding oneself on the losing side of pragmatism. The Wheeler family haunted her dreams; not in any gothic sense, but in the mundane horror of poverty and sickness combined, the everyday tragedy that Alexander seemed capable of dismissing as unfortunate but necessary.
She dressed herself, dismissing Mary when the girl arrived to help, choosing her simplest morning dress, a practical blue muslin that wouldn't show dirt easily and wouldn't scream 'duchess' to anyone who saw her. Her hands shook slightly as she pinned up her hair in a style more suited to a merchant's wife than a duke's, but that was rather the point. She wasn't going to the Wheeler cottage as the Duchess of Montclaire today; she was going as Ophelia, a woman who understood what it meant to worry about money and security.
The house felt different this morning, charged with an energy she couldn't quite identify. Through the connecting door between their chambers, she could tell Alexander's room was empty. Not just from the absence of sound, but from something less definable, an emptiness that suggested he'd never come to bed at all. After those visitors last night, with their serious voices and talk of legal matters, he'd probably spent the night in his study, poring over documents and correspondence. Good. If he was occupied with whatever crisis those men had brought, he wouldn't notice her absence until it was too late to stop her.
She slipped her mother's old shawl around her shoulders and made her way quietly down the servants' stairs. The main staircase would have meant passing Alexander's study, and shecouldn't risk that confrontation, not when her resolve was so newly formed and still fragile.
The servants' hall was buzzing with hushed conversation that died immediately when she appeared. Everyone rose to their feet, but she waved them down impatiently.
"Please, don't let me interrupt. I'm just passing through."
Mrs. Morrison appeared as if summoned by the breach of protocol, her face a study in carefully controlled disapproval. "Your Grace, surely you're not going out at this hour? And without proper escort?"
"I have an urgent matter to attend to in the village, Mrs. Morrison. I'll be back before anyone notices I'm gone."
The housekeeper's expression suggested she highly doubted that. "Your Grace, perhaps if you informed His Grace of your plans..."
"His Grace is occupied with important business, as you very well know. Those gentlemen who arrived last night are still here, aren't they?"
Mrs. Morrison's hesitation was answer enough. "They are, Your Grace, but..."
"Then His Grace has enough to concern him without my small errands. I'll take the small carriage, the one that isn't marked with the family crest. No need to make a production of this."
"Your Grace, this is highly irregular. If His Grace discovers..."
"Then I'll take full responsibility. This is my choice, Mrs. Morrison, not yours or anyone else's."
She swept past the housekeeper before her courage could fail, but not before catching a glimpse of something unexpected in Mrs. Morrison's expression—was that approval? Surely not. The woman was devoted to Alexander and his precious propriety.
In the entrance hall, she encountered James, the footman, who looked torn between his duty to assist and his clear understanding that something wasn't quite right about the duchess sneaking out at barely past dawn.
"Your Grace, shall I call for your carriage?"
"The small one, yes. And James? There's no need to mention this to His Grace if he asks."
