Page 11 of The Duke and the Hellion Bride (Duchesses of Convenience #7)

Chapter Eleven

“I t is not funny,” Magnus snapped.

“On the contrary, from where I am sitting, it is rather hilarious.” Magnus’ best friend, Theodore, Earl of Northwood, cackled gaily. He slapped his knees and shook his head and looked positively delighted.

“Are you quite done?”

“Yes, yes,” Theodore said, sobering up. Only then he caught Magnus’ eyes once more and double over in laughter for a second time.

“Now, really...”

“I am sorry,” Theodore cried out through the tears and laughter. “Truly, I know it is a sensitive topic, but you must see things from this side. My, oh my, Magnus...” He took a deep breath and wiped away the tears. “Were you always this much fun? Or has marriage changed you.”

“I did not come here to be mocked.”

“And yet mocking you is the only possible outcome. I would almost say you were a sucker for self-punishment. According to your tales of marriage, you certainly are.”

“I don’t know why I tell you anything.”

“As I said, a sucker for self-punishment,” Theodore chided Mangus. “That, and you have nobody else to tell. Make some more friends if it please you. Ones who fear you, as nearly everybody else this side of the Channel seem to.”

Only Theodore would dare speak to Magnus this way. And strangely, despite Magnus’ current antipathy toward his best friend, he rather liked it. The problem with being a duke was that most people were either scared of you, or wanted something out of you, both outcomes leading them to do and say as they thought you wanted to hear, not what you needed to. Theodore was one of the few people in Magnus’ life who treated him as an equal.

They had been friends since childhood, a friendship which had faltered when Magnus fled across the ocean to the Americas, but one that had picked up right where it left off upon his return. Magnus had changed a lot in the years he had been away. He had become more hardened. More serious. More discerning and distrusting of others. Theodore, on the other hand, was the exact same.

He was blonde of hair and boyish in the face. Slightly stocky but trending toward muscular as he was a renowned horseman and spent his spare time rearing them as if he was a stablemaster and not an earl. The type of man that everyone just seemed to like, Magnus had always been privately pleased that Theodore seemed to covet their friendship nearly as much as Magnus did.

That was the only reason that Magnus had felt comfortable in coming to see him this evening. Desperate to get out of the house. Desperate to unload his woes on another. Desperate for answers, that's what! He sought his best friend and regaled him with tales of married life... perhaps going into a little too much detail, as evidenced by his friend’s mockery.

“Tell me it is not as bad as I think,” Magnus sighed. He had in his right hand a tumbler of whiskey, but he hadn’t so much as taken a sip, such was his state of mind.

“Oh, it is worse than that,” Theodore jested as he took a sip of his own drink. They were in the drawing room of Theodore’s manor, sitting by the fire. “You are attracted to your wife! What a nightmare to behold.”

Magnus sneered. “You know things are not that simple.”

“Only because you choose to make them complicated.”

“As I have explained,” he sighed. “When Diana and I entered into this marriage, it was promised that it would be for convenience only.” Theodore was the only other person in the world who knew of this arrangement, another testament to how much he trusted the man. “My nieces are what matter, and I made this perfectly clear.”

“And your lovely wife?” Theodore asked with another sip. “Is she in agreement? By the sounds of it, she might wish to reassess the tenants of the arrangement. Just as you clearly do,” he added with a wink.

Magnus looked at his friend flatly. “And as I explained, I do not wish to force myself upon her – as I have done consistently. For all I know, she reviles me but has felt obliged to indulge with my tenacious actions because she thinks she must! I have not given her a choice, truth be told.”

“Is that what you think? Truly.”

“It is the truth,” Magnus said. “You know my...” He grimaced. “History, as well as anyone. And I as well as anyone know what it is like to feel powerless. To do as others tell me, while pretending that it is as I want. What if she is the same?” He shook his head with guilt. “I cannot do that to her. I will not.”

Magnus bowed his head in shame as memories of his childhood flooded back to him in droves. He had been a sickly child. Weak and withering. Bedridden, for the early years of his life it was believed that one night he would likely go to sleep and simply not wake up – a mercy, most thought this would be.

Yes, he had grown stronger in time. But he would never forget what it was like in those harder days, forced to do as he was told, wanting to appear as if he was not weak and pathetic. Lying to himself and going along with the whims of others simply because there was no other option.

His body shuddered at the memory and finally he had a drink.

“Do you want my opinion?” Theodore said. He threw back the final mouthful of his whiskey and rose to his feet, strolling across the room to refill his glass.

“I did not come here for the pleasure of your company.”

“Your reasoning just now,” Theodore said as he poured himself a fresh drink. “It is the height of, pardon my tongue, bullshit.”

“Excuse me?” Mangus frowned.

“You heard me.” He finished pouring his drink and waltzed back to the couch, falling into it with a grunt before taking another sip and smacking his pink lips. “It is bullshit – an excuse, concocted by you for reasons of... well, I can only assume guilt.”

“Preposterous.” Magnus blew through his lips.

“You continue to bring up your nieces, as if they are all which matter.”

“They are!”

“They are important, no doubt. But they are not the be-all end-all – and I am not trying to insult you,” he said quickly when he saw a flash of anger behind Magnus’ eyes. “You care for them, as you should. But you also feel guilty, blaming yourself for your brother’s death.”

Magnus attempted to wave him down... albeit, weakly. “I do... I do not.”

“His death is not on your hands, Magnus,” Theodore said, his voice turning soft. “And raising his nieces, although it is admirable, will not change what happened.”

“That is not --”

“I am not saying you should not care for them,” he spoke over Magnus. “But what I am saying is that raising them should not take absolute precedence over everything else in your life. You can be happy and see them raised into respectable women of the ton. The two are not mutually exclusive.”

“Who says I am not happy.”

He scoffed and took another mouthful of whiskey. “And thus we come onto the topic of your lovely wife.”

“Oh...”

“Clearly, you are attracted to her – and do not insult me by saying otherwise.” He waved Magnus down as if to preempt the argument. “And clearly, she has some attraction toward you. Although why she does... tell me, is she blind? You did not say.”

“Funny,” Magnus said very dryly.

“Exploring this attraction is not taking advantage,” he continued. “And using your nieces as an excuse is not nearly the argument you think it is.” He looked at Magnus. “It is a damn shame, if what you told me just now is even half true. Truth be told, I would be shocked if your wife wasn’t at least curious to see where this marriage might go – it's protentional. Because I tell you now, she did not marry you because she has an affinity for raising another man’s children. And unless she is mentally dull, well...” He pumped his eyebrows at Magnus. “I am sure she can raise the girls and perform her wifely duties.”

“How aptly put.”

“I do have a way with words, don’t I?” He winked and then threw back the rest of his drink in one mouthful. “You deserve to be happy, old friend. And this wife of yours...” He laughed and shook his head. “I always thought that if you were ever to marry, she’d need to have an iron will and a tongue like a whip. It sounds to me like she has both. If anything, she is the one taking advantage of you.”

“Oh, please...” Magnus blew through his lips.

Theodore shrugged. “Just a thought. Just a thought...”

Magnus’ natural inclination was to be dismissive of his best friend. More often than not, Theodore preferred tomfoolery and absurd humor, rather than moments of honesty, so it was usually a safe bet. In fact, try as he might, Magnus couldn’t think of another instance in which his friend had been so darn insightful as this.

Was it possible that he had been overreacting to the clear chemistry that existed between himself and his wife? Even trying to subvert how obvious it was with feelings of guilt and shame felt for what happened to his brother?

He knew deep down that his brother’s death wasn’t purely his fault. His brother had died due to poor health, brought on by alcoholism. But Magnus hadn’t been there to stop it as he should have been – forcing the role of duke onto his brother’s shoulders was likely what had caused it in the first place. And when he had returned, he hadn’t done nearly enough to try and stop it.

None of this was Diana’s fault, of course. And her attention to his nieces, what he wished for them, wasn’t a reflection on how he should feel about her. Yes, they had entered this marriage as a convenience and nothing more, but did it have to stay that way?

Despite himself, Magnus began to smile, tinges of excitement prickling his senses because he wondered if his friend was right. More than that, he hoped he was.

“And there it is,” Theodore said with a proud nod. “He has come around.”

“And now I have to suffer through you gloating,” Magnus sighed. “I wonder if it is worth it.”

Theodore shrugged. “I am rather insightful, if you give me a chance. So, why you have me, take advantage. What should we tackle next? Your relationship with your father? Perhaps those nightmares you once told me you suffer through. Or even --”

“Enough,” Magnus said, feigning a smile, even if he was slightly annoyed. Theodore, although meaning well, often went too far. His father was one thing, but those nightmares to which he spoke... those were a dark secret that he regretted mentioning, done so in his darkest hours, not to be discussed ever. “Unless you want to see why everyone is so afraid of me.”

Theordore looked nonplussed. “And there is the other side of the coin... no, wait. There have already been two sides. The other side of the triangle?” He rubbed his chin. “What is an apt metaphor?”

“What are you talking about man?”

“You wish to be with your wife? You wish for her to want to be with you? Well, I have some bad news for you, my friend. Woman...” He clicked his tongue. “They are not like us men.”

“Thank God for that.”

“They are not one to give in to sexual desires purely for the sake of carnal delight.”

“Meaning?”

“It won’t be enough to simply tell your wife you find her attractive and want to bed her. If you wish for this to work, you need to do the one thing that you are perhaps worse at doing than any man I have ever met.”

“Which is?”

He looked flatly at Magnus. “Opening up. Talking about yourself. Giving her more to latch onto than your rugged good looks and supposed charm, of which I am yet to see proof of, for I guarantee that the moment you bed her, she is going to want more. And you, Your Grace, are as closed off as a brick wall surrounded by a high fence, girt by a moat filled with sharks.”

Magnus blew through his lips. “I am not that bad.”

“You are worse.”

He waved his friend down. “You are getting ahead of yourself, Theodore. For all we know, she will want nothing to do with me anyway, making your point moot.”

“And if she does want something to do with you?”

Magnus shifted uncomfortably because he knew his friend to be right. He also knew that when it came to talking about his past, his dark secrets and trauma, there wasn’t a force on this earth that could pry it out of him. “Then I will cross that bridge when it comes.”

“A bridge that in your estimation will be on fire and guarded by --”

“Will you stop with the metaphors!”

Theordore grinned. “Just trying to help.”