Page 21 of Ruby in the Rough (Heiress #4)

Chapter

Twenty-One

C ordelia did not know how she had come to be standing at the front of a crowded room, a ring on her finger, and a new title before her name. But within three days of being caught in a scandalous position with the Duke of Walpole, she had become his wife.

Married.

The small church on the estate was overflowing with guests from the surrounding counties and house party. Pew after pew full of the ton who wore curious smiles and exchanged knowing glances.

Everything had changed.

She was no longer Lady Cordelia Ravensmere. She was the Duchess of Walpole.

And yet, as she stood beside the duke at the wedding breakfast a little while later, a delicate porcelain plate in her hand, she wasn’t sure how to act around him. Nor, it seemed, did he know how to proceed around her.

The last few days had been a whirlwind of arrangements, whispers, explanations, and rushed plans. Rosalind had summoned the rest of the family to the estate, and they had arrived the evening prior, just in time for the wedding.

A servant passed by with a silver salver, offering small, intricately decorated cakes. She accepted one with a polite smile. "Thank you." Though she had no appetite. Her stomach was knotted too tightly to consider eating.

The duke, at her side, appropriated one as well but made no move to eat it.

“I’m sorry to have put you in this position, Cordelia,” he said quietly, his voice pitched low enough that only she could hear. “It was never my intention.”

She resisted a sigh. He had said the same thing more than once in the past three days, and though she did not doubt his sincerity, the words had begun to wear.

“I know it was not your intention, Your Grace.” She met his eyes and hoped he did not regret this outcome as much as she feared he did. If she was forever an obligation he would come to resent.

“And as I’ve said, several times now, I too am sorry. I would have preferred our wedding to occur under very different circumstances.”

He looked away, a pained expression tightening his features. “I fear I shall not be a good husband, Cordelia.”

Her heart lurched and dread prickled at the base of her spine. She hoped—prayed—his words were no more than nerves. Surely he did not mean them as a settled truth.

“There is no reason our marriage cannot be a success, Your Grace,” she replied, forcing calm into her voice. “We get along well enough. And I believe…” She hesitated, cheeks heating. “There is passion.”

She dared not look at him after that confession.

But was it not true?

From the moment they’d first danced, first argued, first kissed, there had been something undeniable between them. A spark that flared into a blaze whenever they touched. Whenever he looked at her in that way.

She wanted him with a ferocity that shocked her. That day in the library, he had only needed to snick the lock, and she had thrown herself at him like a woman possessed.

Pulled his shirt from his breeches.

Pressed her mouth to his skin.

Laid down before him and allowed him to own every inch of her body.

They had not touched since. He had not returned to her chamber, and she had not expected him to, not with the wedding looming. But the longing hadn’t abated. It had grown.

He cleared his throat. “We get along, yes. But marriage was not a prospect I had thought to enter into. Not now. Not this way.”

He glanced around, as if worried someone might overhear. “I have a reputation in town. Up until recently, I had a mistress.”

Cordelia nodded stiffly. “I had heard rumors of her. I saw her once, in Greenwich.”

He looked at her and she wondered if he could see the fear, the jealousy that riled up within her at the mention of his mistress. "I have ended that association,” he said. “But that is not to say I will not take up with another.”

Cordelia turned slowly to him, her hand tightening around the edge of her plate. “So you are telling me that despite our marriage—despite the passion between us—you intend no loyalty? No chance of love?”

He didn’t answer and her throat grew tight.

Panic churned in her belly and the disappointment of her marriage, that he would warn her away after all that had been done between them settled like a weight upon her chest. Christian may think being honest was honorable, that he did not mean to hurt her, it was simply his truth, but that didn’t make it any more devastating.

Still, the idea that her husband could be unfaithful from the very start, that he would allow others to share in what should be hers alone, made her want to cast up her accounts.

If he betrayed her, how could love ever grow between them?

It could not. The trust too would be severed. Everything would be wrong. All her dreams of a marriage like her sisters’—a love match, a courtship turned partnership, mutual respect and affection—faded before her eyes.

She had hoped for so much more than she was being offered. What kind of future lay ahead? Certainly it would not be the one she had once imagined.