Page 9 of Married to a Frozen Duke
"Aren't we?" Henry drawled from his position by the mantel, brandy already in hand despite the hour. "I rather thought that was precisely what we were. Peasants being honoured by His Grace's condescension."
Ophelia sat in her usual corner, hands folded in her lap, wearing her second-best morning dress—a pale lavender that made her look like she was gently fading into the wallpaper, which was rather the effect she'd been hoping for. Her mother sat beside her, radiating maternal concern and occasionally patting her hand in a way that suggested she thought her daughter might bolt for the door at any moment.
"Remember," Robert said, pointing at each brother in turn, "we're civil. Coldly civil. Politely civil. But civil."
"You've said civil so many times it's lost all meaning," Charles complained.
"And no challenging him to anything," Robert continued, ignoring the interruption. "No duels, no races, no wagers, no..."
"No fun whatsoever," Edward finished glumly.
"This isn't meant to be fun. It's meant to be..."
The butler appeared in the doorway like the herald of doom. "Your Graces, the Duke of Montclaire."
And then he was there, filling the doorway with his presence in a way that had nothing to do with his actual size and everything to do with sheer aristocratic audacity.
Alexander entered the room with the kind of studied indifference that suggested he'd rather be walking into a den of actual lions. His gaze swept the assembled company with the warmth of an arctic wind, pausing on each face just long enough to categorize and dismiss.
The eldest brother...bigger than expected, looks ready to throw something. The second... the one with pretensions to wit. The twins...they're actually wearing matching waistcoats. How delightfully provincial. The mother...nervous but trying to hide it. And…
His gaze reached the corner and found her. Miss Coleridge.
She was… unexpected.
Not in any dramatic way—she wasn't a hidden beauty or a secret diamond. She was simply not what he'd pictured. Quieter, smaller, more contained. She sat so still she might have been part of the furniture, except furniture rarely watched one with such carefully neutral eyes.
Brown hair, neither fashionably styled nor unbecomingly arranged. Brown eyes, neither particularly large nor particularly expressive. A face that was pleasant enough but would never stop traffic or inspire poetry. She was, in a word, forgettable.
Perfect.
A forgettable wife was exactly what he needed. Someone who would fade into the background, cause no scandals, make no demands. Someone he could safely ignore for the rest of their natural lives.
"Your Grace," Robert said with a bow so minimal it bordered on insulting. "How… good of you to call."
"Mr. Coleridge." Alexander returned the bow with precisely the same degree of negligible respect. "I trust I find your family in good health?"
"Tolerably well," Robert replied, managing to make it sound like a threat.
"How delightful." Alexander's tone suggested he found it anything but. "And your father? I had hoped to speak with him directly."
"Indisposed," Henry supplied smoothly. "A convenient headache."
The temperature in the room dropped several degrees as everyone absorbed the implication that Mr. Coleridge Senior couldn't even be bothered to meet his daughter's potential husband.
"How unfortunate," Alexander said with a smile that could have frozen fire. "Though perhaps understandable, given the circumstances."
"The circumstances," Robert repeated, his jaw tightening, "being your grandfather's bizarre attempt at posthumous matchmaking."
"Quite." Alexander moved further into the room with the confidence of a man who'd never met a space he couldn't dominate. "Though I prefer to think of it as... reconciliation."
Henry actually laughed at that, though it contained no humor whatsoever. "Reconciliation? How wonderfully optimistic of you, Your Grace."
"I do try to see the best in situations," Alexander replied with magnificent insincerity. "Even impossible ones."
The brothers bristled collectively.
"Perhaps," Mrs. Coleridge said with the kind of desperate brightness that suggested someone needed to intervene before bloodshed occurred, "Your Grace would care for some refreshment? Tea? Or perhaps something stronger?"
