Page 11 of Matters of a Duke’s Heart

“They are happy for her,” Rupert commented, following his gaze. Spencer jerked his attention away from the family. He merely nodded, not offering further comment. But Rupert did. “Good. It is nice to see that.”

“They clearly cannot see the look on her face,” Spencer muttered.

“She looks positively miserable. Then again, she agreed to walk into this with me. I cannot imagine it is a happy situation.” He clenched his hands together, trying to force out his miserable worries with the tension. “I hate that I have done this.”

“Spencer,” Rupert interrupted, “you cannot hold guilt for it.”

“But I do. I pushed for such a quick turnaround. Heavens, I did not even give her a whole week. She will leave them, leave this house, and…” He trailed off, unable to look back toward the Merriweathers and their happiness contrasting with his bride’s misery.

How different it was to his wedding with Sophia.

She had been the one with the beaming smile, while her family had been solemn and clinical, an efficient wedding breakfast with no fanfare.

While Sophia had been happy to marry him she had not gotten along with her family. They ought to have been happy with her for marrying a duke but they had not shown it very much.

“I am married again,” he said aloud when Rupert offered no further advice or comfort. “It has been more than seven years, and I am married again.”

Worry gnawed through his reserved confidence, and he tried to shove it down. He needed a drink. He needed to leave the celebration. He needed to find some normalcy, or just something to stop the heavy weight of his guilt.

Felicity’s back was stiff and straight. She handled everything almost as distantly as he had, but Spencer had long perfected his persona of indifference.

While his new wife showed no emotion whatsoever, he had seen flickers of grief on her face at the ceremony. But now… now she seemed just as businesslike as him, ready to look at their arrangement as a transaction, perhaps.

“Why not think of this as a good thing instead of all the dread your thoughts are piling up with?” Rupert asked. “Yes, marriage is binding, and your last one left you with a withering confidence in hope.”

“I am thinking of it as a good thing,” he insisted. “Alexander needs—”

“What about what you need?”

The question caught him off-guard enough that Spencer went utterly silent, giving his friend a chance to speak again.

“You have lived in that townhouse, going back and forth between it and your countryside estate. You speak only to me, really, and have no other company save for your son. What about this being a good thing for you? A woman to be the mistress of your household, to hold a conversation over dinner, to simply just provide life to your home? It might not be a marriage that will blossom with love, but it will be companionship. What if that is enough?”

“Companionship is not a good enough reason to override my guilt over causing this for her,” he answered tightly. “She will grow to resent me if she does not already.”

He thought of Sophia, of her resentment building.

How, over time, everything she had once found endearing about Spencer became things that annoyed her.

How she had grown tired of him, bored of their life when they had stopped finding new things to love about one another, and then she had begun sneaking out, leaving Spencer to fade to the background of Sophia’s life.

He had pushed for his new marriage, but only now that the marriage was legal, did he think about the mistake he may have made.

“Have faith, Spencer,” Rupert told him. “Get to know her as a lady, not as your wife, if that is what will help. She is simply a lady whom you could have met under any normal circumstances. Think of that. You both control your lives from here on out.”

Spencer pondered his advice, his eyes straying back to Felicity. She held herself so well, even if the clench of her jaw gave away just how much she held back. Did he need to give them a chance?

Felicity would be a good mother, he believed that, and he knew enough that she was a proper lady and would be a well-liked duchess. But as his wife…

Such a thing seemed more personal, more intimate—he was not ready for that. How could he get to know her without crossing boundaries?

Two people, playing at marriage, trying to make a silent house louder.

That is what he envisioned, and it terrified him.

Still, he had to do what was right. He had proposed this arrangement, and he must see it through and make her life as content as he could. She would never go without anything she desired, and she would have several estates at her disposal.

They couldn’t live apart, of course, for she would always need to be near Alexander, and live wherever Spencer did, but there was comfort in knowing she could go elsewhere if she wished. For short periods of time, of course.

She will be fine, he told himself..

He approached his wife, held out his hand for her. I will be fine. “May I lead you to our table to begin the wedding breakfast?”