Page 7 of Duke of the Sun (Regency Sky #1)

CHAPTER 6

M ichael glanced up at the grandfather clock for the third time. He shuffled around in his seat, eyeing the table full of sandwiches and fruits set up in front of him. His stomach grumbled. Across the room, a few servants waited beside the wall politely, not making eye contact with him. He could only imagine how he might’ve looked to them, his face scrunched up and full of anger.

Lunch was served an hour ago. The Duchess had been fetched before then, and once at the start. Michael sent another servant for her after half an hour had passed, but no one had come back. Not even the servant herself. Michael’s foot tapped impatiently against the floor. How disrespectful could one woman be?

Michael smacked his palm against the table. The plates and tiers of food shuddered, a few utensils falling to the floor. The servants remained still beside the wall. He rose from the table and paced along the length of the room. His hands remained at his sides, curling and unfurling with every passing second. The irritation within him was something he couldn’t ignore. How could he overlook such a discretion, something that people of polite society were taught from an incredibly early age?

The Duchess deliberately crossed him, a fact that he had no doubt about. No matter the differences between them, they were wed, and he happened to be the head of the household. To refuse to dine with him was as rude as an unwarranted slap to the face. He could not remember another time when he was so angry, when he was so furious he thought he could tear through an entire room. He breathed in deeply, pausing in front of the table.

“Fetch me Mrs. Bellflower,” he suddenly said, to no one in particular.

Immediately, the two servants poised by the wall bowed their hands and sped out of the room, pelting off in two different directions. Michael stared at the curtain, which he closed the moment he entered the parlour. Almost all the windows on the side of the estate faced the lake, something he had no interest in seeing. A light draft swept in through the cracks, pushing the curtains open every now and then.

Michael’s hand clenched into a fist, his scarred skin wrinkling unpleasantly.

“Your Grace.”

He turned to see the housekeeper standing in the doorway. She bowed her head and pressed further into the room.

“You called for me, your Grace?”

“Where is the Duchess?”

Mrs. Bellflower pressed her lips together. “Your Grace,” she said, “The Duchess has been in the gardens, overlooking her workers for the orangery herself.”

Michael stepped closer to the housekeeper. “ Herself ?”

“Yes, your Grace,” she replied. “Her Grace has done it plenty of times before, and -”

“What?” he shouted, interjecting in the middle of her sentence. His temper rose and rose, till he could no longer dare to hold any of it in. “Does no one in this household understand the meaning of propriety?”

Mrs. Bellflower lowered her head.

“Who allows this?”

“I am under no authority to halt it,” she responded in a quiet, timid voice. “I might express my displeasure, but I am of no station to argue, your Grace.”

Michael glowered. “Can’t Hunters make a point about it? This is my reputation we are speaking of!”

“I thought it was the Duchess’s,” she said.

“It is both of ours, Mrs. Bellflower!” Michael shouted again, his voice clashing against the walls. “No wonder the Ton believes her to be having affairs, left and right! The woman deals with men without a damned chaperone! Men !”

Mrs. Bellflower flinched backwards a step. “I apologize, your Grace.”

“I -” Michael hesitated. Watching the housekeeper take a step backwards, flinching from the strength in his voice, sent an ill-boding feeling down the back of his spine. He lowered his hands, and took a step away from her. Not once, despite the regret or the remorse, did Michael feel his anger simmer down. His rage was practically tangible.

“I suggest you and Hunters change the way you handle things around the estate,” he snapped.

Mrs. Bellflower bowed her head. “Yes, your Grace.”

Michael stormed by her and entered the hallway.

There was never a time in which his mother took unchaperoned men into the estate. Much less hired hands, workers from below their station. It was despicable and demeaning, an act that could put the Duchess in more trouble rather than not. He had not a clue about those workers, about what they did or where they came from. All he knew was that his wife was there, alone with them.

Michael marched faster, determined to stop the transgressions from continuing beneath his nose. When he neared the back doors, his eyes caught onto Hunters lingering nearby.

“Hunters!”

The butler spun around, a few other servants behind him. “Yes, your Grace? Finished lunch? We might return to the -”

“Come here.”

Hunters paused, one brow raising as he walked over. “Yes, your Grace.”

“The Duchess is out there overseeing those men on her lonesome,” Michael hissed. “How long have you allowed this to pass on?”

The butler’s eyes narrowed only slightly. “Her Grace insisted on being a part of the work being done on the orangery, your Grace.”

“And you deemed that wise?”

“Whatever I deem it to be matters not,” the butler replied. “I am here to serve, your Grace.”

Michael leaned dangerously close, unable to stop himself from seething. “This might be the very reason why the Ton believes my wife to be constantly in the midst of an affair!”

“You know that is not the case, your Grace.”

“What I know and what is seen are two different things!”

Hunters nodded. “I understand, your Grace. Might I attend to the workers alongside the Duchess?”

“You will come with me to escort every damned soul unwarranted out of the estate!”

Before the butler could reply, Michael stormed off, ripping open the back door that led into the estate’s land. The orangery, which was being built near the hedge maze, was too far for him to see. The workers lingered around the gardens, packing up their tools and supplies for the day. A few were pulling carts up the squat hill, met halfway by Hunters, who led them the rest of the way. Michael continued on, sidestepping by the mingling workers.

Beside the garden, the Duchess stood on a stepping stone to look over a group of the workers. They stood around her, looking up at the pedestal she stood on. The Duchess was in the middle of reviewing things, giving orders to the remaining workers as Michael steadily approached.

“And we need to make sure the glass ceiling is as secure as it can be,” the Duchess was in the middle of saying. “The biggest thing I worry about is -”

“ Everyone! ” Michael shouted, his voice booming across the field.

Almost instantaneously, the workers shut up to their feet and to attention, turning to face Michael. He bristled with anger, hands clenched into tight fists at his sides. In the corner of his eye, he made out Hunters approaching, already motioning for the workers to take their leave. Michael barely glanced up at the Duchess, who remained unphased from where she stood.

“Leave!”

The workers scattered, gathering up the last bits of their supplies before clobbering up the squat hill. Hunters followed behind them, taking any lingering staff members along with him. In the matter of minutes, when Michael stood directly in front of the Duchess, they were entirely alone in the garden.

He motioned for her to get down from the pedestal.

“I am fine here,” she blurted.

Michael glared up at her. “Don’t you have any respect ?”

“Of course I do, your Grace,” she said. “I very well know how to respect my hired help.”

“I cannot, for the life of me, even begin to understand you!”

The Duchess raised a slender brow. “I wouldn’t even think you’d try to.”

“You are despicable.”

Her head shot down to him, her hands resting on her hips. From the pedestal, she stood at least a head taller than him. “What on earth is your problem? I don’t believe I have ever met a man as rude as you!”

“I am nowhere near as rude as you, your Grace,” he sneered. “Refusing to dine with your husband? Just so you might talk and work and sweat beside some strangers?”

The Duchess faced him, her eyes wicked with anger. “Your Grace,” she muttered, “You were so kind as to leave me to dine alone for two years. And what was even better, was that you had no reason!”

Michael yanked his gaze away, staring off into the garden. He bit down on his tongue, not daring to say the reckless things he wished to say. Michael kept his stare away from her, not willing to even look her in the eyes. No woman had ever managed to rile him so. Perhaps it was from her infuriating attitude or lack of simple decorum. Perhaps he felt the slightest bit of guilt in the back of his mind for deciding to live at the private estate for so long.

Michael clenched his fists as he faced her again. The remorse trickled out of him as if it was never there in the first place.

“No wonder rumors follow you wherever you go,” he muttered. “Your behavior is as reckless as a child’s. It is as inappropriate as a harlot’s.”

The Duchess gaped. At her side, her arm twitched, just barely raising into the air. Her palm shuttered, as if her skin imagined striking the side of his face. He merely remained steadfast, holding her stare and not daring to back down. Her hesitation settled for too long, and the Duchess retracted, holding her arms firmly at her sides.

“I have no plans on taking advice on manners from a man like you,” she whispered.

“Perhaps you should consider it.”

The Duchess leaned, inching the slightest bit closer to his face. “Just because you decided to remember that you had a wife does not mean I will suddenly regard you as a husband.”

Michael, filled with an emotion he could not understand, surged forward, closing the gap between them. Despite her height being raised by the pedestal, he stepped onto the ground directly beside it, raising himself to be directly beneath her. The breath hitched in her throat, her eyes widening as they took in his entire face.

Being that close, Michael could see the sweat lining her temples, brown curls sticking to the side of her face. Green eyes, green like the emerald he remembered to be on his walls, stared back at him. Michael glanced down at her rosy red lips, entranced for a moment as her breath wafted against his face.

He looked back into her eyes. “I do not expect or ask you to act like my wife,” he muttered. “But I refuse to accept even the slightest bit of respect from you. I am your husband, and you will take your meals with me, as you should.”

The Duchess didn’t speak a word, didn’t even breathe.

Michael took in her face once more, and stepped backwards. Without even a bow, he stormed off, climbing the hill back towards the estate. All the while, his hands twitched and trembled at his side, a series of chills crawling up his spine. The feelings coursing within him refused to make the slightest bit of sense, but haunted him all the way back.