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CHAPTER TEN

C yrus did not join Teresa for dinner, leaving the kind servants to try and entertain her through four delicious courses that she had barely managed to eat.

She had attempted to search for him afterward, but no one seemed to know where he was, and her efforts to find him alone had left her lost and disoriented in the maze of the castle hallways.

Eventually, she had retired to her chambers, dressing for bed, but unable to think about falling asleep.

Tonight is our wedding night…

The thought circled around and around in her head at a dizzying speed, prompting her to pace back and forth in front of the fireplace, by the window, between the window and the door, around the bed, watching the clock on the mantelpiece every few minutes. It was almost midnight.

“Where is he?” she murmured, wishing she had a book to distract herself, but her belongings had not yet arrived.

As for the romantic adventures of Captain Frostheart and Miss Savage, she had left Prudence with strict instructions to send the new chapters on to her, just as soon as they were delivered. For it would likely be the only romance she would receive.

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, smoothing invisible creases from the skirt of her nightgown, she considered heading back downstairs to see if she might get some warm milk from the kitchens. Or something stronger. Maybe, she would find Cyrus down there too.

Just then, a sound pricked her ears. The rusty squeak of a door opening and the thud of it closing again, somewhere nearby.

The servants’ quarters are in a different wing…

She jumped up, heart thudding wildly, and ran out into the hallway without a second thought. Anger spurred her on, marching her down the hall, her fist rapping on every door she passed, certain that Cyrus was behind one of them.

At the third door on the right, she heard the scuff of footsteps inside.

The breath stuck in her throat as the door opened, revealing a sleepy-eyed Cyrus, his hair mussed, stripped of his gentlemanly uniform.

Barefoot, he wore nothing but his trousers and shirt, untucked, the sleeves rolled up to the elbow.

His collar gaped open, exposing the sculpted lines of a muscular chest, looking every bit like he had wandered out of one of Teresa’s daydreams.

She dropped her gaze, blushing furiously, half-forgetting what she had gone there for, no longer able to produce the words to confront him for his abandonment.

“Yes?” he said. “What is the matter?”

Teresa swallowed. Honestly, I do not remember…

Why is she not asleep?

Cyrus rubbed his tired eyes, if only to stop himself from looking too hard at the ethereal vision in front of him.

Teresa had turned up to his bedchamber door in naught but her nightgown, and a draft in the hallway toyed with the delicate fabric, making it billow in a way that highlighted her lovely figure.

He concentrated on her beautiful face, noting the flush of color in her cheeks, wondering why her gaze was lowered when she was just about the only person—outside of his friends and staff—who had no trouble looking at him.

“Teresa?” he prompted, when she did not reply to his question. “Why are you here? Is your bedchamber not to your liking? Is the bed too hard? Too soft?”

She made a quiet, coughing sound. “Too… empty.”

“Pardon?”

With a shaky breath, she raised her gaze again, defiance burning in her extraordinary eyes. “It is our wedding night, Your Grace.” Her voice cracked. “I have been… um… waiting for you to join me.”

Cyrus’ eyes widened against his will, the ties between his mind and his mouth untethering for a moment. Of course, he had known what night it was, but he had not expected her to seek him out. Rather, he had assumed she would be glad of his absence, free from expectation.

She does not understand what manner of marriage this is…

He had thought he had made it clear in his letters to Vincent, but the man clearly had not passed on the message.

Yes, Cyrus had been in want of a wife, but not for legacy or love; he had needed a wife to improve his position in the realm of business and to aid in the running of the castle.

The benefit of a dowry did not hurt, either.

“You should not have done,” he said, finding his voice again. “I have no intention of joining you.”

Teresa flinched, eyes narrowing. In the light that glowed from the hallway lanterns, and the more bronzed hue that came from his chamber, he finally understood how her eyes could seem blue and gold at the same time.

The iris was flecked with golden lines, giving them a warmth that blue inherently lacked.

“Tonight or… ever?” she rasped, the chilly draft freeing a lock of hair from behind her ear.

His fingertips itched to tuck the honeyed hair back where it belonged, prompting him to fold his arms behind his back. “Go to bed, Teresa.”

“I will not be sent to my room like a child,” she retorted bitterly, hurt creasing the corners of her eyes, furrowing her brow.

“We are married, Your Grace. I do not think it is so outlandish to want to know why my husband has not joined me in my bedchamber, or invited me to his, or… directed me to a chamber we might share. It is… expected, or so I am told, on this particular night at least.”

Cyrus ran a weary hand through his hair. “I married you to spare you. There is no expectation.”

“What do you mean?” Her voice wavered, her eyes burning with an unhappiness he could not fathom.

“I needed a wife, you needed this marriage,” he replied evenly. “You are here to be the Duchess of Darnley, nothing more.”

“But what does that mean?” she urged, her cheeks turning a deeper shade of red.

He puffed out a breath. “Teresa, I do not want a companion in any capacity. I will not be touching you; I will not be joining you in your chambers. You should expect nothing but the comfort and security of being a duchess here.”

“But what does that mean?” she replied more vehemently, throwing her hands up. “What is it that you want from me? Why did you want to marry at all?”

As her arms fell back down to her sides in frustration, her left sleeve slipped off her shoulder, revealing the delicate ledge of her collarbone.

She did not seem to realize, but he could not leave her like that, where the drafty hallway might bring on a chill.

She was already inappropriately attired for the constant cold of the castle.

He moved toward her, closing the gap between them, his fingertips gently pinching the slipped sleeve. Carefully, trying to ignore the accidental graze of her soft, smooth skin against the back of his thumb, he drew the fabric back to where it should be, talking as he did.

“It means you are free to do whatever you want from now on. It means I have no expectations and want nothing from you. I needed a duchess, a wife, in name only,” he said, letting go of the fabric, his fingertips lightly brushing the curve of her neck. “Never knock on my door at this hour again.”

Stepping back into his bedchamber, he closed the door on her, though the wounded expression upon her face could not be shut out so easily. But if he had to be cruel to be kind, that was exactly what he would do.

Teresa stared at the closed door, listening to the retreat of Cyrus’ footsteps in the room beyond—the room she was forbidden to enter.

Her skin tingled where he had touched her accidentally, her own hand moving to cover the spot, wondering if she had imagined the kind gesture of him fixing her sleeve.

It certainly did not match with his second abrupt dismissal of her.

Do not stand here like a fool!

Shaking off her confusion, she turned away from where she was not wanted, and, with her head held high, she retraced her steps to her own bedchamber.

The warmth from the fireplace soothed her like a hug from one of her sisters, or Beatrice, and she sat right down on the rug before it, to savor its heat. Her eyes kept prickling, trying to form tears, but she blinked them back, refusing to let that infuriating man affect her in such a way.

“He is not my captain,” she muttered at the dancing flames. “Rest assured, my curiosity has been satisfied. As I have long suspected, imagination is far greater than reality.”

Deep down, she wished she had been more confident in her assumption, for then she might not have found herself in this situation.

She would not have burst into that room at the ball, would not have tried to kiss him, would not have bound herself to a man who clearly did not want anything to do with her, like every other gentleman she had ever encountered in society.

Why did I think he would be any different?

“The irony is,” she whispered to no one at all, imagining that Beatrice was there at her side, “now I am guaranteed to never know what it feels like to be kissed.”

She laughed bitterly, shuffling backward until she felt the support of the armchair against her spine.

Relaxing against it, she gazed at the flames for a while longer, trying to see her future in the fiery flicker, but it was only when the blaze began to die down to embers that she truly saw her fate.

I will never live the love story I have dreamed of my entire life.

“But I will be happy,” she vowed, glaring at the glowing embers. “No matter what, I will find a way to be happy, from this moment on.”

She was just twenty years old; she would not let this be the end of her story.