Page 27 of A Bride for the Cruel Duke (Claimed by Regency Devils #1)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“I think you should go,” Anthony said, his voice so quiet that Caroline barely heard it.

She took a second to register what he had said, having been staring at the table as she tried to process what on earth had just happened. When she did, she snapped her head up to find Anthony looking away from her. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” he said, still refusing to meet her eyes.

“I don’t think that I did.”

He took a moment, still refusing to look right at her. She could see his body trembling as he worked to control his temper. Never before had she seen him lose control like this, an insight into the man other people told her that he was. But that isn’t him. Not that I have seen. Not the man who I am married to. Or so she thought.

Suddenly, he clenched his jaw and forced himself to meet her eyes. She gasped when she saw the anger pass behind them. They were stained red, glistening as if he was withholding tears. But he did not blink, nor did he look away.

“I said that I think you should go.”

“Go…” She frowned and leaned back. “Go where?”

“I do not care,” he said, almost a snarl. “Anywhere other than here.”

“Anthony…” She blinked, hearing the words but not understanding their meaning. “What are you?—?”

“Go!” he roared, and she jumped. “Leave, now! Before I change my mind.” He curled his lip at her in fury and shook his head as if in pity. “Consider it a mercy.” With that, he put his head down and stormed from the dining room.

Caroline remained where she was, rendered utterly speechless. Unsure of what had just happened, just as she was unsure what to think.

Her family had been typically antagonistic—Daniel, especially. It was no wonder then that it had upset Anthony as much as it had done, although the way he had acted upon it was more than a little surprising.

Not once since she and Anthony were married had she considered her husband to be an evil man. Not cruel. Not a monster, despite what was said. But this evening, right here… is that who my husband truly is? And all this time, I have simply failed to see it?

She could not believe it. Just as she could not believe what he had told her to do just now. He was simply upset was all, overreacting as was his right. And for that reason, Caroline did not hesitate in jumping to her feet and giving chase.

“Anthony!” she called after him as she breeched the foyer, by which point he was at the base of the stairs. “Wait!”

His foot landed on the bottom step, but he did not continue his climb. His body turned stiff and rigid and she could literally see him fighting to control himself. “I told you to go,” he said without turning around.

“And I am choosing to stay.”

He laughed darkly. “You think you have a choice in this?”

“Do I not?” she challenged him. “I am your wife, this is my home, and I have every right to stay here. You cannot just ask me to leave.”

“And yet that’s exactly what I am doing—no?” He took a deep breath, still not looking at her. “I am not asking you. I am telling you.”

“And I am ignoring you.”

“Caroline…” He groaned. “Please, don’t…”

“What happened just now…” She started across the foyer, wanting to go to him but unsure if she should. “It was not your fault. Daniel… he is the one who?—”

“It is not Daniel,” Anthony cut her off. “He said nothing that was not true or didn’t need to be said. I am the one who?—”

“Did nothing wrong.”

“Is that what you think?”

She continued closer to him, only a few feet away. “It is what I know .”

He shook his head and she heard him laugh. But it was cold and dispassionate, and it sent a shudder through her body. “You don’t know me nearly as well as you think you do.”

“I know you better than that.”

“No…” Slowly, he turned around to face her and she had to withhold her urge to gasp as the man who glared at her was not once that she recognized. “I have been lying to you, Caroline. All this time, everything I have said and done, has been a lie.”

“What do you…?” She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“This…” He gestured vaguely. “Us! Did you really think that any of this was true? That you and me—that I was capable of this farce! A happily married couple. Peace and quiet. Is that what you thought was happening?”

“I…” Caroline felt her stomach twist, words he spoke that she didn’t want to believe. He is just saying these awful things. He does not mean them. Although why he is… “I know what I feel in my heart. I know that I love?—”

“Don’t,” he snarled at her. “Don’t say it.”

“I love you,” she spoke over him, forcing him to meet her eyes so that he could see the truth in them. A truth that she knew more than anything he felt for her also. “Just as I know you love me. That is not a lie!”

“I have been using you,” Anthony said. “This entire time, I have been?—”

“You are lying.”

“No,” he said, with a shake of his head. “Five chance? Were you really so naive as that? Did you really think that was all it would take to change me?” He laughed coldly at her. “I did not want five chances to prove that I could change, Caroline. What I wanted was…” He winced, looking away as if in regret, but then forced himself to look at her again. He bared his teeth and glared. “What I wanted was five chances to have an heir. That is all I ever wanted.”

“No…” Caroline took a step back as if she had been slapped across the face.

“Yes,” he said, stepping down from the stairs and taking a step toward her. He was trying to intimidate her with his size and indomitable presence, and for once it was working. “I wanted an heir only, just as I told you from the beginning. Everything else…everything… it was for your benefit only.”

“No…” She felt a stabbing pain in her chest. “I don’t believe you.”

He shrugged. “Believe what you want. I do not care. I…” He took a moment, struggling with what he was about to say. “The other night, in the glade, when you and I…” He swallowed. “I got what I needed from you. And now that I have, it is time for you to go.”

The world turned around Caroline as his words struck at her. Words that she still could not believe, even though Anthony gave no indication that they were a lie. Had she not felt the change in him since she had fallen from that horse? Had she not been worried that he seemed to be pulling away? She had tried to tell herself she was imagining it, but now her fears seemed well realized.

How can this be… after all we have been through… all we have done… it can’t be real. It can’t be.

“I don’t…” She swallowed as her chin began to wobble. “I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care.”

“I know you feel what I feel.”

“I really do not.”

“Anthony…” She took a step toward him, but he took one back from her. “Please, do not… I do not know why you are saying this. Is it because of what happened just now with Daniel? If that is why, I do not care!”

“And how could you not?” He sounded disgusted, only with himself, not her. “How could you not care? This was what you feared, was it not? That you would be married to a monster who would eat you up and spit you out? That I am exactly what people say.”

“You are not.”

“I am!” he roared suddenly, and she cried out. “I am that thing! I am that monster! And you should be thanking me—on your knees in thanks because you have caught me in a good mood. Enough of one that I am letting you go.”

“Letting me go…?”

“What I told you of my mother…” His chin was trembling, his eyes were glistening with tears, and she could see the pain in him as if it was her own. “That was a lie.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t believe you.”

“I locked her up. I kept her here against her own free will. And…” He swallowed and took a deep breath. “And if you do not leave me right now, I will do the same to you.”

This couldn’t be happening. A bad dream, was what it felt like. Worse than that, a nightmare. The things Anthony was saying were indeed her greatest fears realized; that she would fall for a man, that she would give herself to him fully, and that once he had what he wanted, he would forget her.

How could she have been so foolish? How could she have let this happen? The only way Caroline was able to keep herself from breaking was to hang onto that dim belief that, for some reason—although she could not guess why, Anthony was lying to her.

“You don’t mean it,” she said, the defiance in her voice well and truly gone.

“I do, Caroline. I mean every word…” His shoulders slumped and the anger began to fade. His eyes became filled with regret, but his words stayed the same. “I used you, that is what this marriage was for. I used you and now that I am done, I do not need you anymore.”

“I—”

“Go,” he spoke over her, turning away as he did. “Please, just go.” And with that, Anthony started up the staircase.

She watched him go, begging that he would turn around and change his words. That good sense would reach him before he reached the top, because—whatever this was, whoever it was, it was not her husband. It was not the man she had fallen in love with.

Yet he walked up the staircase. He reached the top floor. And then he turned the corner, not so much as pausing or glancing back to look at her.

Caroline felt her heart break in that moment. She felt her entire world shatter like a dropped vase. How had she been so foolish? How had she been so blind? How had she let Anthony trick her into falling in love with him, just to be used and discarded as she had feared she would be from the beginning?

She did not know what to do. She did not know what to say. She did not know how to feel—she could not feel, for her entire body had turned numb. So, with nothing else for it, Caroline dd the only thing that made sense in that moment. She fell to the ground in a heap, held her knees close, and she wept. She wept for love lost. She wept for her broken marriage. And she wept for Anthony, a man she thought she had known but never really had.

The Cruel Duke indeed.