Page 7

I must get out of this heat. I must!

Alicia kept her smile in place, not wishing any of the guests to suspect the nature of her thoughts.

The parlor was a large room, but it seemed cramped with the table in the center.

Several of the guests were still seated, chattering merrily, but Alicia felt as if ants were crawling all over her skin.

Catching Katie’s eye, she rose slowly from the table, making her way to the garden door on the opposite side of the room.

It was slightly ajar to let in the spring breeze, and the scent of the flowers in the gardens was a temptation she could not fight.

My guests cannot begrudge me a few moments alone with my friends, surely!

She glanced behind her, noting that most of the guests were gathered in groups or still eating and drinking at the table, and slipped outside.

The sun came out from behind a cloud, and in a few seconds, a slim arm was looped through hers. She gave Katie a grateful look.

“I cannot stand another minute in that room,” she said bitterly. “I had to escape, even if it is just for a little while.”

“If they ask, I shall tell them I felt faint and you were helping me,” Katie reassured her, looking up at the sun and closing her eyes.

“I shall do the same,” came a voice behind them.

Alicia turned around, a genuine smile spreading across her face for the first time that day.

Bridget Huxley’s petite frame was crossing the lawn toward them, her hair in disarray as usual, the long strands looking like fire as they fell about her shoulders.

Alicia watched her fondly, relieved to see another friendly face.

“I saw you slip out here and leave me alone in there,” Bridget reproached, making Katie giggle.

“But I am so glad we are in the gardens. We must admire the flowers, ladies. That is a significant task for us in life. It is our job to note the beauty in the world, where the beastly men fail to do so.”

“Do you know any names of the flowers?” Alicia asked, already knowing the answer she would receive.

“Of course not. I don’t plan to learn them either. If some idiotic suitor asks, I shall just make up a name—I’d wager he would not recognize the error.”

Alicia snorted, linking her other arm with Bridget’s, and the three of them walked slowly through the gardens, pretending to admire the flowers as they got some respite from the festivities.

“How are you feeling?” Katie asked gently as Alicia led them along a gravel path between two fir trees and onward to a small fountain in the center of the garden.

The babbling of the water was soothing, and they headed toward it.

“I want to escape,” Alicia said determinedly.

“You can see who it is I have married. So disinterested in anything to do with his bride that he cannot even sit at his wedding breakfast for longer than five minutes. He told me that the only reason he married me was some conditions in his father’s will.

He could not have made it plainer that I am nothing to him. ”

“Despicable,” Bridget scoffed. “If I were a man, I would demand satisfaction.”

The venom in her words filled Alicia’s chest with warmth. She was very lucky in her friends, in her sister… just not in her husband, it seemed.

“I think you should give him a chance,” Katie suggested.

Or perhaps not so lucky.

“Katie, what are you speaking of?” Bridget asked vehemently. “You cannot think that there is any good in the man. He has left her alone for hours after they have just become man and wife!”

“We do not know his character yet,” Katie argued.

“I think his character is very obvious,” Bridget muttered darkly, and Alicia could only agree with her.

“Perhaps there is a side of him that we cannot see,” Katie insisted.

Bridget’s arm tightened on Alicia’s, and she leaned in close. “Ever the romantic,” she whispered.

Alicia noted the tension in Bridget’s manner and voice, and they came to a halt as her friend turned to her.

“If he does not touch you, you could annul the marriage easily,” Bridget said firmly.

There was a spark in her eyes, but once she had said the words, she looked away. The hazel in them was a glassy brown in the sunlight, the water behind her giving them an ethereal hue.

“I hope he never touches me,” Alicia said tightly, pushing away thoughts of the Duke’s big body hovering over her, the feel of his breath against her cheek as his lips hovered inches from her own.

What if he never touches me, as Bridget says? Now, there’s something I have not considered…

Alicia stared at the merrily babbling fountain, the idea taking root in her mind.

What if she could repel the Duke in some way? What if she could make it unbearable to be around her and eventually he would be forced to annul the marriage himself?

“Bridget, I think you have struck on something,” she said quietly.

“I often do; I am terribly clever,” Bridget quipped, making Katie chuckle again.

“What are you considering? Your eyes are quite alight with possibility.”

“Well, it is just as you said,” Alicia began, glancing behind her to ensure that neither the guests nor the Duke were about to interrupt their little gathering. “What if I make him want to get rid of me?”

“But how would you do that?” Katie asked, her naivety showing through more clearly between the three of them.

“It is as Bridget says,” Alicia explained. “If the Duke does not touch me, the marriage will not be seen as real in the eyes of God and Society. I could walk away, leave him as he wishes to leave me, and forget this ever happened.”

“But…” Katie trailed off, looking worried now. “ How would you do so? You are the most beautiful creature in the world.”

Alicia wanted to embrace her for such kindness, but she shook her head, taking Katie’s hand.

“Even if that were true, the Duke has no interest in me as a wife. He told me himself before the wedding that this was a marriage of convenience. He expects us to live separate lives.”

Bridget leaned forward, excitement etched on her face.

“Well then, this is quite perfect, isn’t it?

” she said. “All we have to decide is how you will repel him. Men are easy. There are many things that he probably hates. Disrupting his routine, interrupting him while he is working, spilling tea all over his ledgers… that sort of thing.”

Alicia could not help laughing at those suggestions.

“I can think of hundreds of things!” Bridget giggled as they resumed their walk, their pace quickening as the idea took root.

“You have always been an accomplished seamstress,” she added enthusiastically.

“You mended my dress for me when it ripped at the Gregsons’ ball, and it took you no time at all! ”

“Bridget, that was a simple repair, hardly the same as creating gowns from scratch.”

“Precisely! If they do not look good, then all the better! You could make mismatched colors, strange hats. Anything that would remind him you are a nuisance—someone he could not possibly wish to be seen with in public.”

Alicia nodded. “And perhaps I could take up a hobby he does not care for.”

“Like bird watching!” Katie blurted, finally catching onto the idea. “I remember once being accosted at one of Lady Gallthwaite’s soirees by a young man who would not stop telling me about a nightingale at his estate and how rare they are. I was bored to tears.”

“Brilliant,” Bridget said with a giggle. “And we could arrive at this estate without prior notice. I would dearly love to turn up unannounced and disturb his routine. The Duke is clearly a man who enjoys his solitude, as has been proven today. Let us interrupt it as often as we can.”

“And redecorate,” Katie added. “Change the manor to your liking but choose colors that no man would ever agree to. Make the changes without consulting him.”

Bridget and Alicia were laughing hard now.

Given that she had not understood what they were trying to achieve only minutes ago, Katie was coming up with the best ideas between them.

“He does not seem to enjoy emotion. Maybe I could learn all of the gossip, read the scandal sheets to him over breakfast every morning,” Alicia said.

“And when he asks you to stop, continue as if you have not heard him!”

“Do not heed his rules,” Bridget chimed in. “Ensure that everything he asks of you, you do badly or incorrectly. Infuriate him on a daily basis, and your marriage will be over in a week.”

They had rounded one of the larger beds in the garden, the sun beating down on their faces, and Alicia could almost imagine that the wedding had not taken place—that she was merely alone with her friends, enjoying life as she had done so many times before.

“If that fails, you could do what my cousin did and get a puppy,” Katie said with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

“She brought it home, having found it on the street. Her husband did not leave her, but it was a close-run thing. He was incensed and still hates it. Given the Duke’s serious nature, I can imagine he would not wish to have something like that around the house. ”

Alicia clapped her hands together with a grin. “I love you both. I have never been more determined to enact a plan in my life. He will be ruing the day he agreed to this match and calling on my father to ask him to take me back.”

“Come the end of the summer, this marriage will be a distant memory, and you can move on. We can live together as two old maids, reading and drinking tea without any men to bother us.”

Alicia drew them both into her arms and embraced them fiercely.

She was filled with hope, excitement, and anticipation. The morning had begun with misery and fear, yet because of her friends, it was ending with happiness and hope.

I will make him hate me. I will make him wish we had never met, and he will be begging to be rid of me.