Page 19 of The Dark Duke’s Cinderella (The Untamed Ladies #1)

CHAPTER 19

C otoneaster Manor was located in West Sussex and had been the Wilmington family seat since the days of the Tudors. Philip had been born there like every heir before him, but he hadn’t returned since leaving for Oxford over ten years ago.

The building was larger than he remembered, a coastal fortress in style. The English flag fluttered from the ramparts, with their family’s coat of arms—a dark stag on a white and crimson shield—flying proudly beneath.

The staff at Cotoneaster had lined themselves in an orderly fashion outside the house. The housekeeper and butler had survived his parents—Mrs. and Mr. Granville, now both in their late middle ages. Their son Hector worked as a groundskeeper, and Philip had fond memories of him. If they had arrived any earlier than dusk, he would have excused himself with Hector immediately to get away from Anna and her frosty temperament.

“Your Grace,” Mr. Granville greeted, bowing to his new master. “We are honored to have you in residence with us once again.”

“After all these years,” Philip said absently, staring at the stony facade of the building. It conjured more memories than he cared to remember. “I take it things are in order?”

While the butler explained the changes they had made to the house, Philip watched out of the corner of his eye as Anna spoke with the housekeeper.

Cotoneaster was perched on top of a hill, and rolling, chalky fields stretched outward in every direction. The fortress brooked a centuries-old battle with the coastal wind from the south, and it greeted them fiercely that evening, flags flapping excitedly overhead.

Anna struggled to keep her bonnet in place, clutching it with delicate hands. Her chestnut-brown hair whipped around her face, her beauty accentuated by the golden light of the hour. Philip averted his eyes as his heart skipped a beat, disappointed with himself for admiring her so openly.

Once introductions were made, he called for everyone to enter and led the way indoors. The servants dispersed, and Anna wandered away too, examining the paintings in the main hall with her arms crossed over her chest—staring up at generations of Wilmingtons, each one less honorable than the last.

“We have prepared the solar for Her Grace’s daytime exertions,” Mrs. Granville said after a while, turning to draw Anna’s arrested attention. “And you will both find the master bedchambers arranged to your liking.”

His mother and father’s old chambers—which meant Anna would be occupying the room directly beside his. Philip tried to hide his displeasure.

“It will do for tonight. Once she has familiarized herself with Cotoneaster, she may claim any room she desires,” he said, raising his voice to make sure Anna heard. “Would you show the duchess upstairs? She has had a long and tiring day. Supper would best be taken in her room.”

He cast a sidelong glance at Anna. She shrugged and followed Mrs. Granville up the stairs. An evening apart would allow their tempers to cool.

They didn’t see one another again until much later that night, when he retired for the evening. He stood before the door to his new chambers in the family wing, mustering the courage to enter his new sleeping quarters. The room in which his father had died.

He half-expected the decayed corpse of his father to be lying abed, struggling to admit a death he hadn’t seen with his own eyes.

Suddenly, the door adjacent to his cracked open. Anna exited slowly, still dressed in her traveling clothes. She saw him and started, stepping aside so quickly that she backed painfully into the doorframe.

“I didn’t know you would be here,” she said, rubbing her back.

“You would not have come out otherwise.”

“No.” She frowned. “But I could not sleep.”

“Do you usually sleep in your day clothes?” He examined her from head to toe. “Why haven’t you called for your maid?”

Anna pursed her lips. “I couldn’t find the bell.”

“What bell?”

“The bell to ring for her, of course,” Anna grumbled and started closing the door. “Just… never mind. She’ll come looking for me in the morning, I’m sure.”

Philip contemplated the closed door before him. By that point, Anna had slipped back into her room, clicking the door shut. He sighed and knocked on it. She opened the door tentatively, and he barged inside.

“You’re supposed to ask for my permission before entering!” Anna cried behind him. “What are you doing? These are my rooms.”

He ignored her, looking around for the bell. He had rarely entered his mother’s bedroom as a child. She had preferred to keep her children at arm’s length.

Her room was nothing like he remembered. A warm rose wallpaper had been fitted to match the burgundy carpets, golden fixtures shining in the soft light of the candles.

It struck him that the room had Anna’s essence already: feminine, reserved, and inviting. Her possessions had been neatly organized in the open drawers of her dresser. Perfumes and jewelry decorated the ivory vanity. A night chemise was laid out on the bed, made of thin white cotton with ruffled sleeves…

He promptly looked elsewhere, determined not to overstay his already fragile welcome.

“In my old sleeping chambers, it hung on the wall at my bedside.”

He crossed the room and approached the bed, pushing back the decorative pink curtains behind it. Its beaded trim jingled with the movement.

“Nothing,” he said, letting the drapery fall back into place.

Philip felt Anna watching him as he searched high and low. He sighed and looked around, squinting in thought.

“I’m starting to think you asked them to remove the bell,” she said, causing him to stop, “so I couldn’t call for help when you inevitably barged in here.”

“You presume I had time to order my staff to do the task and see it completed in the week since our betrothal?” he scoffed. “I have had more important matters to attend than devising creative ways to torment you.”

“Really? I have a few japes planned for you already,” Anna joked—what he hoped had been a joke. “And I came up with several more in the carriage, I’ll have you know.”

“A more productive use of your time than feigning sleep, to be certain,” he muttered, pushing back a standing mirror to check whether the bell was behind it. “Sadly, I will not be around long enough to enjoy the full catalog of your pranks. Once Elinor arrives tomorrow, I will begin preparing my return to London. She will know where the bell is located…”

Philip was close to giving up, having scanned every visible inch of the room. He leaned against the vanity in the corner while Anna sat on the bed, looking for places he had missed.

“Why did Elinor not come with us today, if you are determined to foist me on her at your earliest convenience?” Anna asked softly.

“To keep up appearances.” He put his hands on his hips and exhaled, too distracted to reconsider his answer. “A sister does not accompany her brother on his wedding night. Not when the expectation is for him to—” He stopped himself.

Did Anna know what would have been expected of her that night, if theirs had been anything other than a marriage of convenience?

He glanced at her warily. Her cheeks had flushed pink, the blush spreading to her chest. Someone had said something to enlighten her, but he doubted it had been her mother. Those friends of hers seemed like trouble. One if not all of them must have found time to educate her.

“That is why your maid has not come either,” he added awkwardly. “She will have assumed you were occupied.”

“Well…” Anna gulped, turning away from him and thumbing her chemise. “Clearly, that is not the case. Although this is some sort of occupation, and we are doing it together.”

“I think you’ll find that I alone am occupied. You are sitting there, sulking as you have been all day, being no help at all.” They were talking at last. It wasn’t the worst time to start pressing her for answers. “Has enough time passed that you can tell me what is bothering you?”

He could see her biting the inside of her cheeks again. She had gnawed on them all afternoon. He had pretended not to notice, even though every movement she had made in the carriage, every pained breath, had distracted him from the book he had been trying to read beside her.

“Are we not past these games by now, Anna? What do you stand to lose by telling me the truth?”

“My ignorance as to who you truly are, for a start,” she admitted, lying back on the bed. The silk coverlet creased beneath her. “So long as I don’t know the truth, I can imagine you being whoever I like. The worst man in the world—or the best.”

Philip remained silent, too tired to coax a real answer out of her.

She inclined her head in his direction, the pink silk reflecting on her face. She looked ethereally beautiful. It wasn’t fair. How could a woman who infuriated him in one breath completely disarm him in another?

“When Alicia came to visit…” She squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to look at him. “She said that you and she were involved more than I knew.”

“What?” Philip laughed in surprise, before his anger caught up with him. “And you believed her?”

“Not at first. I wasn’t sure what to believe. But then I saw the two of you today… I stepped outside for air during the wedding breakfast, and you were dragging her away into the woods. I watched for a while, and I heard you arguing.” Her eyes flashed open, and she sat up. “What am I supposed to assume from that? I wanted to ask you to tell me the truth, but I was too angry with you and too afraid.”

He could hardly believe what he was hearing. She had jumped to all the wrong conclusions.

Not jumped . She had been led there by someone bent on misleading her. Someone she had once trusted and admired more than anyone in the world.

“Let me put the lion’s share of your doubts to rest,” he said, trying not to sound as indignant as he felt. “There has been nothing between me and any woman since I left on my commission.” He doubted she grasped the shame of what he had just admitted. Not even George and Simon knew how lonely he had been. “That you would think I was capable of such a thing… Have I not proven my character to you at all?”

“I’m sorry,” Anna murmured.

“Are you? For I am…”

He didn’t know what he was. Relieved, partly, that she had been cross with him for something he hadn’t even done. But angry—terribly angry—that she had thought so little of him as to believe something like that in the first place. But could he really blame her? He had witnessed firsthand Alicia’s attempts at manipulation that afternoon.

He rose from the vanity. “I am tired of all these misunderstandings.”

“There has been nothing else.” Anna shook her head, her eyes widening in fear. She scrambled off the bed, stopping before him and placing her hands on his chest. “I promise you, that alone was the cause of my anger. And if you are telling the truth… no, I can tell that you are being honest with me. I feel so… I should never have listened to her.”

Philip looked down at her, frozen in place by the feel of her hands through the fabric of his vest. One hand rested over his heart, and he worried she would feel its wild rhythm. Beating for her.

She seemed to realize how she was holding him, too close for comfort, and flexed her fingers hesitantly against his chest.

“If my forgiveness will put an end to the strain between us,” he said, his voice catching, “then take it. This has been a day of discovery for us both. When Alicia and I spoke—for she did speak to me and nothing more—she revealed the reason for your disappearance the night of the opera.”

Anna looked up at him in fear. Her hands fell to her sides, and he missed her touch immediately. He seized a hand and held it aloft—a feeble attempt at comforting her.

“It does not matter. If you were afraid of discovery then, you need not be afraid now.” He blinked, thinking back to that night and the story he had forced upon her. “I had mistakenly thought all this time that you had met… That you had not been…”

He was too ashamed of himself to finish his sentence.

“Oh…” Anna mumbled. “You thought I had met… a lover.”

“Or something like it.” He let go of her, stepping back. “And in my mind, if you had been capable of that, then it was not such a terrible thing to spend time with you. Because while I was not worthy of you… I was closer to being worthy when you were… When I thought you were…”

“I understand,” she said. “You don’t need to say anything else. I don’t mind. We have both made mistakes.”

She stepped toward him, and he pulled back on instinct, not trusting himself enough to touch her again.

It was their wedding night. And when she was looking at him like that, with willingness and yearning to be held, he worried he wouldn’t be able to control himself. She would regret it in the morning, and so would he. Succumbing to his desire for her would only cause her pain…

He backed into the armoire behind them by accident, and it rattled against the wall. The sound caught him by surprise. Hollow, echoing. There was an empty space behind the armoire and the wall, just enough room for something to lay unnoticed by them.

He pushed the armoire aside an inch, revealing a gold and red rope behind it, so close to the shade of the curtains that the servant who had prepared the room might have mistaken it as part of the drapery.

“The bell,” Anna said, laughing in disbelief.

There was more to the sound than he wanted to admit. Sorrow that he had no more reason to stay with her.

Philip mustered a smile and reached out a hand to pull it. He could feel Anna tense as he did. She would have let him stay—he could feel it. And he wanted to. By God, did he want to. But it wouldn’t have been right.

Moments later, when Anna had fallen back into bed, the bell rang in some far-off place in the manor, and Philip entered his father’s death chamber alone.