Page 16 of His Unexpected Duchess (Hearts of Whitmores #2)

CHAPTER 16

N icholas stepped back as Joanna hurried to the house, wondering what had gone wrong.

There might have been a few bumps along the way. She had dropped the reins at one point, and he had been tense when she attempted to ask about his loss. But overall, he was confident that all was going well on their outing.

When he’d helped her down from her mare and they’d stared at one another, the urge to kiss her––even simply embrace her, which felt as unfamiliar as anything to him––had almost been too much.

She had smiled, indulging him as he found himself charming her. He had attempted to make their morning as pleasant as possible. And it had been, hadn’t it?

I didn’t say anything, did I? What made her run from me?

“Joanna,” he called, but not loud enough for her to hear him.

Biting his tongue, Nicholas tried to think. Except he found himself focused on her lingering scent. Sweet citrus. It wafted in the air between the nearby flowers, mocking him.

“Your Grace?”

Nicholas turned to look around for his father—an old habit—only to realize that the stableboy was speaking to him. A lump formed in his throat as he turned toward the young man.

“Is there something more I can do for you, Your Grace?” The boy hastily took off his cap and patted his mussed hair. It stood up everywhere like hay as he tried to offer a friendly smile.

More of a grimace, really, but Nicholas knew he was trying. And it was an unnecessary attempt.

He shook his head. People fell over themselves to secure his favor. Though he was used to managing servants, he’d never had such absolute authority. It left him very uncomfortable.

That’s what I have a wife for—to manage the servants. A wife who has left me for a reason I hardly understand.

Remembering this, he gave a shake of his head. “All is well. Thank you for your service today, Daniel.”

The young man looked surprised that his master recalled his name. Muttering something under his breath, he offered a short bow and hurried back toward the stables.

As for Nicholas, he had some thinking to do.

Making his way back into the house, he changed out of his riding clothes and into daywear. He tended to his waistcoat himself, buttoning it up on the side of his chest while staring out at the gardens. For several minutes, he searched for something until he realized that his wife wouldn’t be out there.

A megrim, she said. She’s too young to complain about those. And the way she couldn’t meet my eyes… Perhaps her head ached and perhaps it did not. I’m inclined to assume the latter, though I cannot understand why she would feel like that.

“Is there anything more I can do for you, Your Grace?” his valet asked from across the room.

“No, thank you. Tend to the boots lest the mud sticks, if you please,” Nicholas instructed.

Then, he dismissed the man and stared out the window at the gardens for another minute.

When they were children, on the few occasions they had stayed in town, Eleanor used to scamper into his room and stare out at the gardens. It was the best viewpoint in the house, she used to say. His window allowed her to see so much more of the flowers than any other window.

Turning his back on it, Nicholas studied his room.

Nothing had changed over the years. This was still his bedchamber from his childhood. Once he was removed from the nursery, he had been brought here.

Light blue walls and gray accents allowed for simple wallpaper and little decorative art. He recalled playfully switching out paintings from the other rooms and into his, exasperating everyone at one point or another. There was a favorite figurine of his father’s that he had kept on his bedside table for nearly a year before the man found it.

A short lifetime of cleverness. And where had that led him?

He looked at himself in the mirror in the corner and frowned. Lately, he had avoided his reflection. There was always something wrong with it. With him . He was too tired, too frumpy, too wrong.

Some nights he woke up gasping for air, needing his father. His brother. Needing someone to step up and take this weight off his shoulders. It was too much.

How had his father managed it? How had his brother been so calm and ready to take on the mantle?

Perhaps if he had not spent so much of his life laughing and playing around, he might have learned something. He could have been useful.

“It’s too much. How am I supposed to help my sister? How am I supposed to manage a wife? Joanna doesn’t even want to be in my company for long. To even take her out in public…” he trailed off, playing with a loose thread on his cuffs.

His valet had asked to trim it, but he wasn’t about to go out, so he had declined. It could be managed later.

However, Nicholas needed to make an appearance with his wife, eventually. Already many people had inquired when they would appear together.

Newlyweds weren’t usually expected to attend social events soon after the wedding, but it would be noted as strange and remarked upon if it didn’t happen at some point. The longer they waited, he supposed, the harder it would be to try.

He tugged at the loose thread in frustration. He enjoyed the busy life of London, didn’t he? Balls and musicales and picnics. He used to enjoy it all.

How life can change so quickly.

Nicholas mulled this over for some time, wrestling with his thoughts and emotions.

He paused to send a card up to Joanna that evening in the hopes she was faring better. Her response was that she was simply tired, but she offered nothing more. So he left her alone, at least until morning.

When he learned that she had come down to break her fast sometime that morning when he was already at his desk, with a full tray at his side, he changed his mind.

“Return this to the kitchens,” he ordered a footman. “Enjoy it. I’ll fetch something from the sideboard.”

“Oh. Er, yes, Your Grace.”

And off Nicholas went. His feet moved quickly, eating up the rugs in his eagerness to see Joanna again. They would appear in Society that week, he decided. He was determined to give whatever this was between them another chance. He didn’t know why or how, but he knew it needed to be done.

He stepped into the room to find two footmen standing at the side and his wife seated. Eleanor was nowhere to be found, making this easier for him.

“Oh, good.”

Joanna almost choked on her tea, having not noticed him behind her. She coughed and picked up her cloth napkin to dab at her mouth while turning to him.

“Your Grace?” she asked meekly.

He inhaled deeply and smiled. “Good morning, Joanna. I thought I would join you this morning. Surely you wouldn’t mind some company?”

“I suppose not, Your… Nicholas. You are welcome to join me. There is plenty of food. I shall only be a minute longer.”

Pausing from piling food on his plate at the sideboard, he eyed her plate. She had hardly taken a bite.

“How fast shall you be eating this morning?”

Her cheeks flushed, and she looked away. It was meant to be a jest, but apparently, it was poorly delivered. “I may have eaten more than my stomach could handle.”

“Are you ill?” When she shook her head, Nicholas added another piece of bacon to his plate and told her, “Then perhaps you should take more than a minute and enjoy more of your food. I do not want to see you wasting away. It would reflect rather poorly on all of us.”

Another jest that fell awkwardly between them.

Joanna offered a nod, sipping again on her morning tea.

Nicholas eventually joined her at the table, where he sat right across from her. There was a surprised look in her eyes as she swept them over him, but then she shook off whatever had bothered her. Or so he hoped. So he put on another smile, arming himself for this morning’s task.

“How do you fare this morning?” he asked her when she set down her teacup.

“Well enough, I suppose.” Joanna hesitated. “And yourself?”

He nodded, before taking a bite of his kippers. “Fairly well, thank you. In fact, I’m glad we have this time together. We have been rather absent from social events of late due to the recency of our nuptials.” He barely stumbled over the word, as he had rehearsed it half the night. “So I thought it best that we make a public appearance. I’m sure there’s a ball or party taking place soon.”

Though Joanna had been playing with the apple slices on her plate, she paused when he shared his intentions.

He had thought she would be eager to rejoin Society. Instead, a familiar furrow appeared between her eyebrows, telling him that something wasn’t quite right.

“Newlyweds rarely attend the same events,” Joanna said slowly. “That is what I have been told. Why should we be different from the rest?”

His mouth hung open for a moment. “Well, I… I thought… If we don’t appear together soon, it may cause rumors. It would also make it easier for you to enjoy the Season. And I should enjoy attending with you,” he added in what he thought was a pleasant manner.

“I don’t think that would be right,” Joanna responded.

It was Nicholas’s turn to frown. “Why would you say such a thing?”

“The ton surely doesn’t expect anything from you,” she reasoned after sucking in a breath. “Ours is a marriage on paper only. We know this, and so does the ton. Parading about town together would be akin to presenting a facade that everyone knows is fake.”

The woman really did enjoy stumping him.

Nicholas shook his head. “They don’t know the truth from a lie, either way. It is of no concern to them.”

“But you just said it matters.”

“I only mean,” he gritted out, before catching himself. He inhaled deeply and then spoke slowly, “I only mean that it would go a long way in helping create a place for you amongst the ton. You have told me yourself that you have limited experience. But as a duchess, there is much more of Society that would be open to you. They only need to be reminded of this, and so we should attend an event together. A ball might be best.”

Still, Joanna shook her head. “There is no need. I am complacent.”

“You wished to be a duchess, and now you are one,” he pointed out, wondering why she was testing his patience.

He had expected gratitude and eagerness, but for some reason, she fought him on this. He couldn’t imagine why.

“Do you not wish to host events in our home and represent our family?”

He saw her hesitate. There was a dark shadow in her eyes. But it was only there for a moment before she shook her head and rose to her feet. “If that is what you wish, then I will do what I must. But I will not be led about on your arm like a pretty hat while you carouse about town.”

There was an edge to her words, so polite and courteous that they merely felt like a pinprick. Still, he flinched.

A rake. That is what she knows about me and how she sees me. Blast it. After everything we had shared, this is it? I have been nothing but courteous. Complimentary, even. There have been no other women, no…

Well, he had attempted to flirt with a few.

“Wait!” Nicholas hastened after his wife when she left the room. Huffing in irritation, he caught up with her down the hall. “Joanna, you are not giving me a chance. Perhaps you know my past, but you haven’t given me enough time to prove that I can be more than the man I used to be.”

“How much time do you need? Because I think it shall be a few years, and I’m not interested in waiting for you for that long,” she said without looking at him.

“I won’t carouse about with you on my arm.”

“So, you will without me there?”

He bit his tongue. “Certainly not. I have not caroused around for a year. I only engaged in a few mild flirtations.”

Somehow, it wasn’t until she shot him a baleful glare that he realized what he had said and how off-putting it must have sounded to her.

While it was fairly common for men, married and not, to have a mistress or two, she wasn’t experienced enough to understand such things. Or perhaps she didn’t care for them.

“I only meant that there has been no one else since our wedding. That is,” he tried to correct himself awkwardly, “I don’t want anyone else. There are no other women.”

“If that is what you claim, so it must be.”

Hearing the sarcasm in her voice, he scowled. “Joanna, what am I supposed to do? What do you expect of me?”

“Nothing,” she responded more primly than necessary.

Am I supposed to change her mind? Drag her about town anyway? Lock her away in her room and never let her out? She’s turning everything backward and upside down. Why can I never think straight around her?

Running his hands through his hair, Nicholas tried to think. He felt like she kept poking at him and he needed to defend himself. His actions. But what more could he say than what had already been said?

“I’m sorry if you have been misled––if I have misled you in any way,” he amended hastily at her stony expression. “But I have no intention of seeking out other female company beyond that which is already in this house.”

That should have brought her relief. But it didn’t. Why didn’t it?

He stared at her profile, trying to make sense of it.

“How kind of you,” she drawled.

He threw his head back and groaned. “Joanna, you are making this impossible. No, I’m sorry. I just don’t understand. My aim this morning was to ask you to attend a ball with me. Or perhaps even the opera. My family has a box. Our family. Why don’t we go together tomorrow evening?”

“The opera?” Joanna stopped in her tracks, a light flickering in her eyes. But then it dimmed as she shook her head. “No one attends the opera. I have… I do not need to attend.”

Liar.

Perhaps she had told him other untruths, but that was the easiest lie he had ever caught her in. He opened his mouth to tell her that, and that they would go to the opera whether they liked it or not.

Unfortunately, they had reached her bedchamber without him noticing. She slipped inside without another word and shut the door in his face.

“Fine!” he called. “I give up. But if you change your mind, you’ll have to tell me.”

I will not drag her there, after all. No. The woman is taking me to the end of my tether, and I shan’t stay here another moment. She wants to go, and she will have to ask. I am not going to follow at her heels a moment longer, begging for her attention.