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It was why, after all, Mrs. Packard had never assigned Grace cooking duty. Grace would have poisoned her captors in a heartbeat, given the opportunity.

“Well,” she said decisively. “I’m so glad you all came out to greet me—and the duke, of course.” She let that hang. Mrs. Bradley, at least, heard the censure in the words. At a ducal house, for the arrival of a new duchess, theentirestaff would normally have been present, not just three members of senior staff. Adding her husband to the end of her statement merely indicated that he, too, was complicit in this lapse of decorum.

Not that he seemed to care, of course. For, as soon as she was finished saying, “Now, shall we head inside? It’s been quite a long journey,” he swept past her, again failing to offer his arm.

Instead, he waited until he was all the way up the steps before looking back at her.

“By the by,” he said, “I might warn ye that there are two other dogs inside. Daenae let Shona and Sorcha scare ye to death. As I said, it’d be mighty inconvenient to have ye dead on yer very first day.”

CHAPTER 7

If she hadn’t taken the table set for one as a message, the long, slow tick of minutes into the supper hour would have made things clear enough.

Her husband was not coming.

She tried to appear unaffected through the soup course—which consisted of an honestly delicious chestnut soup. She didn’t know if the quality of the food spoke to Mrs. Bradley’s professional pride or some affection for Grace (or at least not outright hatred), but she didn’t much care.

She managed to keep her cool during the meat course, though she could only pick at the herbed rabbit that was brought to the table by a footman who refused to make eye contact.

By the time she reached the fish course—perch delicately cooked in lemon parsley sauce—she could not control her anger.

She slammed her fork down on the table as she stood. She nearly sat back down to dab at the spot of sauce she’d left on the clean linen before stopping herself. No, the staff was being rude and cold to her, too—no doubt following their master’s lead.

No, forget social hierarchies or her status as a newcomer—forget all of it. This was downright rudeness. And Grace was sick and tired of it.

Oh, so his high dukeness wasn’t pleased that he had her as a wife? Well, at least he’d had achoicein the matter! She’d seen him that evening, positively swarmed by options. He could have done whatever he wanted. He’dpickedher.

Meanwhile, Grace? Grace had never had a choice, not in one bleeding part of it. She hadn’t chosen to be her father’s daughter; she hadn’t chosen to attract Dowling’s attention. She hadn’t asked to be abducted, hadn’t asked to be talked about or picked over like a particularly tasty morsel.

She thought about all the choices she’d never been given as she stormed through her new home—her new home that she had not, of course, chosen for herself—and then she thought about how certainother people,people whodidhave all those choices, were acting like—like?—

Well, like proper arseholes,she thought sourly. If there was ever a time to use the language she’d overheard during her time away, this was it.

Her head of steam was so built up that she was well prepared to give her new husband a piece of her mind by the time she found him.

“You!” she exclaimed, barging into his study. “You are a rude man!”

She might have been ready tothinkthe oaths, but she was not yet prepared to speak them out loud. She was a lady, after all.

In the moment of surprise before her husband rearranged his features into his usual smirk, he looked…different. Softer, maybe? The look was there and then gone, fast as lightning, but it only stoked Grace’s anger higher.

If he had some way to be different, that meant that being awful was merely another choice that he got to make.

Well, this oneshecould choose, too. She could be awful, too. Even when it scared her.

“I take it something is amiss, wife,” he drawled in a way that made Grace feel very small.

She refused to be cowed.

“You didn’t come to dinner,” she accused.

His sneer was a knife. “I ate.”

“You are rude,” she said again. “And it is encouraging your staff to be rude. “You have brought me to this new place—which, mind, you didn’t even bother to tell mewherethis place was—and have simply flitted off. It is intolerable behavior.”

Upon entering the room, Grace had felt that all these complaints were legitimate. The longer her husband looked at her, unspeaking and cruelly amused, however, the longer she felt like a child facing their weary nanny after a tantrum. She was about to either shriek and throw something at him or turn and flee—even she didn’t know which, to be honest—when he finally sighed and gestured to the chair across from his desk.

“Sit.” It was an order. “I think it is high time we clarify some things between us.”