Page 20 of Duke of the Sun (Regency Sky #1)
CHAPTER 19
M ichael couldn’t help but enjoy the fact that he and Rhys stood out from the rest of the Ton like a sore thumb. The pair of them dressed in black, their hair pulled back and glowering. Michael glanced at his close friend and could hardly recognize him within the sea of flowers, the Lady’s dressed in pale colored sundresses standing out shockingly against his silhouette. Michael glanced over his shoulder at his wife and her sister.
Cordelia looked like a sunflower within a dull field of green. She was the brightest in the entire batch, and he couldn’t dare to even think about pulling his stare away. He happened to be her husband, after all, and that responsibility suddenly felt like the greatest he ever had. Michael felt the greatest tug towards her when they were the furthest apart, as if he could feel the tension in their separation. The bond was staggering and unexpected, something he was never supposed to have.
The life she wanted - married and living alongside a partner - was nothing Michael was prepared to give. Perhaps when she called him a recluse she failed to understand the simple meaning of the word. Even there, within the garden and alongside Rhys, Michael wished for an immediate escape, overcome with discomfort by all the Ton members surrounding them. Michael glanced at his friend, and judging by the stricken look on his face, he knew that he felt the same way.
“You seem different,” Rhys suddenly said.
Michael leaned against a pillar within the garden, his hands grazing the lilacs. A few bees buzzed by his head. “How so?”
Rhys shrugged. “We’ll have to see about it in the ring, won’t we?”
Though he was only teasing, Michael was suddenly interested in hearing more. “Different how, Rhys?”
He shrugged, not too bothered by Michael’s persistence. “More at ease, if that’s at all possible for you to comprehend.”
Michael scoffed. “I hardly feel at ease.”
“We are talking about two different things, I believe.”
“What?”
Rhys leaned closer to him. “Perhaps you aren’t at ease in this very moment, but in the grand scheme of things,” he raised his shoulders, “You seem different. Is that so bad?”
“Depends,” Michael grumbled.
Immediately his mind was focused on Cordelia once more. There was only one thing different in his life, something that was burrowing itself in the back of his mind like a cold. He already dove in too deep, unable to break the tie that was so easy to sever when they were first wed. He neared the point in which he was in no rush to leave Solshire, to say goodbye to her or the life she built so beautifully in the estate. Since returning, he saw Hunters smile more times than he had all his life. And, once again, only a single thing had changed.
“When will I get to meet her?”
Michael’s head shot up. “You can't possibly mean -”
“Your wife,” Rhys said. “How much longer can you keep her from your best friend?”
“We have discussed this before. Introducing her to you implies something permanent, something that I will not be able to keep.”
Rhys shook his head and sighed. “Where in the devil did that come from?”
“What?”
“Your incessant need to prove that you cannot be a good husband to Cordelia,” Rhys snapped. “What has driven you into such a reckless insecurity, Michael?”
His eyebrows shot up. “In no way am I an insecure man, Rhys.”
“And yet, you cannot admit that you might be a well enough man to be at Cordelia’s side?”
Michael leaned in close to him, his voice barely above a whisper. “You tread into water you do not understand, Rhys,” he hissed. “I know what cloth I am cut from, and to tread warily into marriage is a nicety I believe a woman like Cordelia deserves.”
Rhys pressed his lips together. “I understand.”
“Are you through with the questions, now?”
“Don’t push it.”
Michael leaned against the podium once more, too annoyed with his boxing partner to focus his attention on him any longer. The garden seemed to fill with more people, if it was at all possible, and pressed in upon them steadily. Michael let his gaze search through the sea of Ton members, desperately looking for Cordelia.
His heart threatened to stop.
Cordelia was where she had been, but Irene was nowhere in sight. Instead, there was a tall gentleman standing beside her, and they were deep in the throes of a conversation. The man smiled down at her and, even from a distance, Michael saw her laugh.
Without thinking, Michael’s hands tightened into fists.
“Rhys,” Michael growled, “Who is that man talking to my wife?”
Stepping forward, Rhys’s eyes narrowed as he stared across the garden. “Looks like the Earl of Vaun to me,” he murmured, his gaze flicking over to Michael nervously. “Colin Evans, the man who was once betrothed to Cordelia Celeston.”
Michael’s eyes widened. He couldn’t pull his gaze away from the two of them, and could hardly hide his aghast expression. They looked like old friends, reminiscing and remembering the previous days they spent together. A fiery heat exploded through Michael’s chest the longer he stared. His vision warped, and he soon imagined them holding hands, walking through the garden as a married couple, carrying a few children along with them. The jealousy surged through him relentlessly, swimming through his veins alongside his very essence.
“You alright, Michael?” Rhys asked, clapping his hand down on his shoulder.
Michael shrugged his hand off. “We will see each other at the ring, won’t we?”
“Well, sure, but -”
“Good afternoon, Rhys.”
Michael twisted and nudged around the throngs of crowds within the gardens. The pristine weather pulled all of London’s society out into the day, and they gathered all around the dahlias and the daffodils. Michael, however, was intently determined, and it would take a lot more than a series of nicely dressed men and women to stand in his way of reaching Cordelia. As he drew closer, he could hear Cordelia’s laugh.
Eyes from the nearby Ton held onto her and the Earl.
Michael was seething by the time he reached Cordelia, almost tempted to carry her over his shoulder out of the gardens. If the entire city wasn’t watching, he might’ve been more inclined to do just that. He reached for her, and snatched onto her wrist.
“Come along,” he snarled as he loomed over her, “ Wife .”
Cordelia stared at him in confusion, hardly an ounce of fear visible across her way. She tugged back on him slightly. “The party is hardly over!” she hissed. “We were staying in order to -”
“Do not try and scold me like a tutor, Cordelia,” Michael quickly whispered. He hardly recognized himself with the venom in his voice. “We are leaving.”
The crowd parted all around them simultaneously, curious eyes creening to get a snippet at the gossip unfolding right in front of their eyes. Michael kept his stare straightforward, not loosening his grip over Cordelia’s thin wrist one bit. She begrudgingly trudged along behind him. Cordelia didn’t offer any more bouts of arguing, but there was an annoyance in the way she walked, a certain sort of march that spoke more words than she ever actually said.
They were silent all the way to the carriage. Michael informed the driver of their early departure, and climbed into the carriage after his wife. Cordelia crossed her arms over her chest as she sat in the corner farthest away from Michael, her gaze focused on the world passing by out the window.
Michael sat diagonally from her as the carriage began to rumble along the London streets. He glanced in Cordelia’s direction every now and then, unable to stop himself from sneaking a look at her. The irritation in her stare never changed, radiating a sort of anger he hadn’t seen on her before.
He bit back his scoff. What was there for Cordelia to be mad about? Michael was the one who saw her talking with her previously betrothed suitor, who now had a wife and children of his own. Cordelia hadn’t even realized all the Ton members surrounding her, all the eyes that curiously watched the scandal unfold in front of them. Michael intervened at the right time, he told himself. He could’ve come by sooner, if he had only realized it. He told those words to himself over and over again, desperate to erase the desperate heat of jealousy that plagued him still.
If he was jealous, that proved the very thing Michael sought incredibly hard to avoid.
Feelings, unmistakable and blatant, for Cordelia.
Don’t be ridiculous!
As quickly as the thought came, Michael shoved it away, raising his chin within the carriage. He didn’t have a shadow of a doubt regarding the matter. He did not have feelings for Cordelia, but rather the feeling of an impending responsibility that came along with singing the marriage contract. Despite not living aside one another for a few years, Michael was bound to make sure the rumors were separated from their name, no longer plaguing him or the legacy he might leave behind.
That was why he tore her away from the Earl.
Responsibility and duty.
The words repeated like an incoherent mantra as the carriage rolled to a stop in front of Solshire.
Cordelia, ignoring the rules of decorum, ripped open the small compartment’s door, and burst out of the carriage without a hand to help her. The skirt of her dress flew in the spring breeze as she stormed away from the carriage, and up the stairs towards the front of the estate. Michael quickly stepped out, surprising the footman for a second time. He ran up the steps two at a time, following behind his angry wife.
The doors parted to reveal Hunters and the housekeeper, Mrs. Bellflower. Michael was moments away from speaking to them, when Cordelia beat him to it, her hands tightened into small fists.
“Won’t you two leave the Duke and I alone in the foyer for a moment?” Cordelia asked.
Hunters and Mrs. Bellflower bowed their heads simultaneously, not daring to utter an argument, but sharing a very telling look. They left the foyer the moment afterwards.
“ What, ” Cordelia began, her voice sharp, “Is wrong with you, Michael?”
His brow furrowed. “Perhaps I could ask you the same thing!”
“Me?” She threw her hands in the air. “What could I have done to earn such a thing? Did you stop to consider what the Ton might think, seeing the Duke become a beast after all?”
Michael surged forward, closing the space between them. “I was thinking of the Ton all along!” The words hung in the air, and he prayed they didn’t sound as hollow as they felt as they left his mouth. “Do not act as though you weren’t doing anything wrong.”
“Tell me, Michael, what you believed to have been such a sinful act,” Cordelia hissed. “Was it my walk with Irene? Or was it after, when we paused to admire the flowers?”
“Or was it when the Earl of Vaun approached you,” Michael whispered, “And you willingly continued in conversation with him?” He searched her eyes as her short breaths wafted against his chin. “Do you deny it?”
“Of course not,” she said. “What harm have I done in talking to Colin?”
Michael scoffed. “You even address him so informally. What am I supposed to think?”
“If you mean to say I ruin our chances in swaying the Ton to what we wish them to see, through the mere circumstance of seeing an old acquaintance, you are hiding the truth from yourself as much as you withdraw it from me.”
He clenched his hands into tight fists. Everything he wished to say rested on the tip of his tongue. He wanted to grab her, to shake her and demand to know why she would ever spare the Earl the time of day. He wanted to demand to know her truth, to know whether or not she still felt bound to the man.
Michael shook his head. They were ridiculously jealous things that he couldn’t dare to tread upon. It was not his truth.
“You have risked the work we have done to rewrite the Ton’s beliefs of our marriage,” Michael said in a rushed whisper. “Everything could be ignored at the mere sighting of you with the Earl of Vaun. Why can’t you see that?”
“Because there is a different truth behind your eyes,” Cordelia snapped. “Something you do not wish to say. Perhaps you might like to act as if I do not know you, Michael, but you might as well start getting used to it.”
Michael tilted his head at her. “You cannot know me.”
“I know you,” she whispered. “And I can see past your walls. Blame your anger on the Ton, blame it on the rumors they might expel about you and your damned name. I hardly care. When you’re ready to speak the truth, you’ll know where you might find me.”
Cordelia gathered her skirts in one hand, and began to storm off, marching towards the main staircase.
Michael’s eyes were clutching to her with every step she took. The further she went, the sicker he felt, the desperate need to have her close almost becoming too much for a man to bear. He reached for her, but she was too far away. Michael pulled back. He couldn’t tell her the truth. He couldn’t let her in close enough to know how attached to her he already was. Soon, if she let him, Cordelia would see the truth about the man she was married to, and would beg to be freed from him.
Perhaps Michael was not the beast the Ton made him out to be, but it did not change the simple truth of the matter. Michael was nowhere near the better man, the right suitor, the gentleman, the perfect husband. It wasn’t him, and it was what women like Cordelia sought out. Everything she wanted to have, he could never hand over.
But then she was going too far, and Michael could hardly stand it. There was a simple thing he needed to know, one question that needed to be answered. At least then, he might be able to carry on, to sleep at night. Michael rushed forward, snatching onto Cordelia’s wrist when she had already gone up a few of the steps.
Cordelia turned, her gaze muddled with confusion. Even then, when he had the power to frighten her in ways she could only imagine, Cordelia did not show a hint of fear across her fight. He looked down at his hand around her wrist, unable to stop himself, and circled his thumb around her soft skin, feeling the distinctly rushed patter of her heartbeat. When he looked back up at her, Cordelia’s lips were parted, her face growing flushed.
“I will only ask one thing of you, Cordelia,” he whispered.
She merely breathed.
“Do you love him?”
Cordelia blinked, her mouth opening but not a word able to tumble out.
Michael pressed his lips together. “Did you love him then? Before it all came crashing down?”
She tilted her head, the corner of her lip twitching into a small smile. “No, Michael,” she murmured. “I did not love him then, and I do not love him still.”
Michael released a heavy sigh, a breath he didn’t realize he held within his chest so tightly. The relief overcame him instantly, like a tidal wave, soothing the nerves that had plagued him since he saw them together at the garden party. He almost sank to his knees, unaware of himself, when he came to his senses.
How could Michael feel relieved? To be happy that she did not love the man who came before him was a sign of something else, something that would be too difficult to fight if he was already knee deep within it. But, suddenly, as he gripped onto Cordelia’s wrist, her last words still echoing in the back of his mind, Michael felt as though he had been entirely engulfed in a dangerous infatuation.
Feelings grew to an exuberant amount within the center of his chest. He looked upon Cordelia and felt his heart stammer, missing a beat or two at the mere sight of her. That would be something that wouldn’t do at all. To feel so bound to someone was far too dangerous to handle with ease. He needed to get away, and he needed to do it fast.
Michael slowly pulled his hand away from her, the echoing hollowness in his chest almost threatening to engulf him in despair. Dipping his head down in a low bow, Michael avoided meeting her gaze another time.
“Forgive me,” he whispered, so quiet he thought she couldn’t have heard.
Michael twisted around, and crossed the foyer, not daring to look back as he disappeared around the corner. Even as the distance between them grew, Michael couldn’t shake the grip she had over him, the infatuation that flourished stronger still. He shook his head as he walked, desperate to return to the man he once was. Every time he closed his eyes, Cordelia came back to him, and Michael felt obliged to turn around and return to her.
He held fast, remained strong.
Distance, he thought to himself.
That is what I need.