Page 8 of The Duke’s Spinster Bride (A Duke’s Game #2)

Chapter Eight

“A nd that is another game to me.” Benedict Tolliver, Duke of Haviliard grinned at him as Frederick slumped over his cue. “Honestly, Caverton, I would almost feel bad taking your money if you were not so rich.”

“I will be considerably less rich by the end of this.” Frederick attempted to smile, but it felt more like a grimace.

They were playing a game of billiards at the gentleman’s club. It was the second day of his honeymoon, and he had decided to get out of the castle, finding it impossible to relax.

Ever since his outburst at their wedding ball, there had been an iciness between his new wife and him. He felt a swirl of anger and shame threaten to overwhelm him. Any time they bumped into each other, she seemed determined to walk the other way.

“Felton? It is not like you to look so dour.” Benedict gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Surely married life cannot already have gotten to you.”

Frederick let out a bark of laughter, but it sounded forced. “Oh, you know me, Tolly, nothing gets me down.”

“And yet I have never seen you play such a terrible game of billiards. You have lost nearly five games in a row and usually I cannot even beat you once!” Benedict gestured at the scoreboard for emphasis.

Frederick shrugged, running a hand through his hair. “Perhaps I am simply trying to lull you into a false sense of security. After all, you will no doubt bet more if you think you have a chance of winning.”

“If you were another man, I might believe it, but you are not that sort of person.” Benedict gave him a frank look. “Are you going to tell me what is bothering you or will I have to thump it out of you?”

Frederick shook his head. He could not tell him the truth. Not about the way he had lost his temper. He could still see how her eyes had widened, the way she had jerked away from him as though burned. Light and easy, damn it. That is what I have to be.

“Is it trouble with your new wife? I thought the two of you had an arrangement?” Benedict asked.

“We did. I mean we do.” Frederick let out a frustrated sigh and tugged on his hair in frustration. “It does not matter. It’s silly.”

“Come one, tell uncle Haviliard all about your troubles, young Felton.” Benedict leaned against the table and tapped his lap, grinning at Frederick.

He shook his head and pointed his cue at his friend. “You are a year younger than me.”

“It is eleven months actually.” Benedict stood and began setting up another game of billiards. “Now, tell me what is going on.”

“I am just tired of it all. Tired of feeling like everything I do is somehow wrong.” He missed an easy shot and grimaced at the ball. “I thought her glaring at me was bad, but whatever this is, it is worse!”

He moved to the other side of the table, pacing while he waited for Benedict to take his shot. “Whenever she sees me, she turns around and leaves. If I happen to enter a room that she is in, she is gone a moment later. If I talk to her, she snaps at me. If I say nothing, she glowers. If I ask the kitchens to prepare something for dinner, she arranges for them to make something else”

“It sounds like there is no winning.” Benedict sunk one of the nearby balls. “At least for you.”

“That is what it feels like. It is not as though I need her to like me –” Frederick said but Benedict cut him off with a laugh “- oh, pull the other one.”

“I am serious!” Frederick flushed.

“Felton, your need to be liked is practically pathological. You go out of your way to make people think well of you. You have done as long as I have known you.” Benedict gestured for Frederick to take his own shot. “And I have known you a rather long time.”

Frederick let out a breath of air and leaned against his cue, massaging his temples with his free hand. “I do not need to be liked.”

“And I am the King of England.” Benedict rolled his eyes.

“I mean, I knew she was not particularly fond of me, after all that was why I asked her to marry me!” He exclaimed, cursing as he missed yet another easy shot.

Andrea’s face swam into his mind, and he pushed it away. His mood was already getting dangerously dark, and he could not allow it to continue this way.

A familiar fear spread through him and he could almost hear the sound of a door slamming in his mind. The smell of his father’s cologne threatened to overwhelm him, mingling with stale whiskey.

Stop thinking about that. He pushed the memory away harshly and returned to the present, focusing on Benedict.

“A truly mad choice, if you ask me.” Benedict made two shots in a row, letting out a triumphant whoop after the second.

“It made sense at the time.” Frederick slumped into a nearby chair. “But I had at least hoped we might be able to exist in the same space as one another. Yet instead, it is like living with a ghost. An angry, loud ghost.”

“You did seem rather friendly at your wedding, well, until she stormed off at the ball.” Benedict stroked his chin. “Have you tried to make amends – I am told that often when one fights with a woman, the best thing to do is to apologise and pray that she forgives you.”

Frederick gave his friend a frank look as he made his way around the table, trying to get a better angle on his shot. “I have tried to apologise, and she has just dismissed me.”

Every time he had tried, she had simply left the room. Sometimes she said nothing, sometimes she exclaimed that she was trying to enjoy some peace and quiet and did not need to be harangued by her husband.

“She is utterly infuriating. It is like she is determined to be cross with me no matter what I do. More to the point, she seems to delight in being frustrating.” He growled an oath.

“What do you mean?” Benedict canted his head towards him.

“Every time I suggest something, she does the opposite. If I say we are having dinner at six, she will tell the cook to prepare it for five. The other day, she woke me up at the crack of dawn by playing the bagpipes outside my bedroom door.” He shuddered at the memory. “I do not even know where she got the damn things. I am quite sure they were not in her honeymoon luggage!”

“She plays the bagpipes?” Benedict sounded amused.

“Yes.”

“Does she play them well?”

“I have no idea.” He felt a small smile on his face which only served to irritate him more. “Even if she did, that does not mean I wish to hear them indoors, before the sun has even risen properly. I love a bit of folk music as much as the next man, but no one needs that.”

“I suppose not. I take it you have hidden them now?” Benedict was lining up his shot.

“If I could have found them, yes. But despite it being my own castle, she seems to know it better than I do. The other day, she appeared from a passage that was hidden behind a painting of my great grandfather.” He shook his head, unable to keep a note of admiration from his voice. “She seems to have a knack for finding such things.”

“And you are sure the Dowager Duchess did not tell her of its exisitence.”

“Reasonably. My grandmother would have warned me about secret passages.” At least, he was fairly certain she would have.

He could just picture his grandmother conspiring with his wife. He sighed. “Who would have thought having a wife would be this exhausting?”

“Most married men.” Benedict clapped him on the shoulder and took a drink of his wine. “It is why I plan on avoiding the entire thing.”

“That was my plan as well, and look how that turned out.” Frederick gave his friend a wry smile and took a drink of his whiskey.

They drank in silence as Frederick surveyed the table in front of him, barely taking any of it in as he thought about Andrea. He was ashamed of his behaviour at the ball. He had known better and now he was paying the price.

But even with that knowledge, he could not help but be irritated at her treatment of him. After all, he had tried to apologise. He had not meant to get so angry, but the way her father had spoken to her... What else was he supposed to do?

“All I wanted to do was to protect her.” He muttered after a few moments.

“That is a rather noble sentiment.” Benedict nudged Frederick’s foot with his cue. “Especially for someone you claim to dislike so intensely.”

“I did not say I disliked her, just that she dislikes me!” Fredrick felt his cheeks redden. “Not that I am saying I care for her. I would have wanted to protect anyone who was being treated the way her father was treating her.”

“That is because you are a good man, Felton.” Benedict smiled at him. “Now let’s play some billiards and forget about your woman troubles for awhile.”

Frederick nodded, but though he tried to dismiss his thoughts of Andrea, his mind kept returning to her. He found himself saying, “Did I tell you that she insisted that the cooks only serve me bland food? She told them I was having digestive issues.”

Benedict raised an eyebrow at him. “You have told me that three times now. For someone who claims not to like his wife, she does not seem particularly far from your thoughts.”

“How could she be when she seems determined to be the biggest annoyance in my life?” He missed another shot. “Well, I am done being nice. I have tried to be civil, I have tried to make amends. No more nice Duke.”

“You are incapable of being anything but nice, Felton.” Benedict smiled.

“Not as far as my wife is concerned.” Frederick failed to keep the bitterness from his voice. “Honestly, living in a house with someone who is determined to hate you is utterly exhausting.”

“Well, you know what they say – the line between love and hate is awfully thin.” Benedict shrugged.

“In my case, the line is an insurmountable chasm. Made even more so by the fact that I do not hate her. My feelings are of lukewarm disinterest, at best.” Frederick made an emphatic gesture with his hand.

“If you say so.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Just that I have never known you to be so distracted by someone that you cannot play a decent game of billiards. It’s almost enough to make me wish you had not gotten married.” Benedict’s tone made it obvious that he was only teasing.

Frederick sighed. “Well that makes two of us. It is hard to believe that this was the lesser of two evils.”

“The pastures will always seem fresher in another farmer’s field.” Benedict nodded sagely. “I would say that you might as well give up.”

“What do you mean?”

“We all know how this sort of thing ends, so why fight it? Why not just give in to your desires and fall in love with her?” He grinned.

Frederick gaped at him. “She hates me, Tolly. As far as Duchess Caverton is concerned, I am not even fit to be the dirt beneath her shoes.”

“Some men might like that.” His grin broadened.

“Well I do not.” He shook his head. “I was perfectly fine before all of this, living my nice, easy life. This was supposed to be a marriage of convenience where she got what she wanted, and I got what I wanted.”

“And what did you want?”

“To not have the eligible bachelorettes banging down my castle door to fling themselves at my feet.” He shrugged. “I wanted to be able to walk in my gardens without fear of being accosted by some desperate young woman looking for a rich husband.”

“And I would say you have what you want.”

“I suppose.”

“And what did she want?”

“Freedom.”

“Then it seems to me you both got what you wanted, did you not?” Benedict began tidying the table, carefully placing the balls back where they belonged. “Besides, you told me that you were only on honeymoon for two weeks. After that, you will return to London and go your separate ways.”

“Assuming we both survive the fortnight.” He gave his friend a weak smile.

“I am sure you will. You are the most liked person in the ton, you will win her over before long.” He clapped an affectionate hand on Frederick’s shoulder.

“I doubt it. I am done trying. If she wants to be miserable, fine. I shall just stay out of her way.” Frederick handed his cue to one of the servants and walked towards the door with Benedict beside him.

“Surely you can see the irony here?” Benedict asked.

“No.”

“You have spent most of the afternoon complaining about your wife, when all she has done is to live her life separately from you, which is what you wanted in the first place.” He ran a hand through his shot hair, leaving it tousled. “Well, aside from a few annoyances here and there, but you have always liked to keep things interesting.”

“Interesting is not infuriating.” Frederick pointed out.

“Besides, I still think that you care for her.”

“I do not.”

“A sentiment that is never more convincing than when someone immediately denies something whilst pouting and folding their arms.” Benedict laughed.

“I was not pouting.” He considered. “Fine, maybe I was pouting a little. But that is beside the point. There is nothing between the Duchess and me, and there never will be.” He slammed his fist into this hand to illustrate his point.

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

“I bet you five guineas that you fall in love before the year ends.” Benedict held out his hand, mischief in his eyes.

“I will take that bet, because hell has a better chance of freezing over.” He took Benedict’s hand in his and shook it.

“Then we have a deal.” Benedict walked towards his waiting carriage. “I shall see you in a few weeks old chap!”

“As long as I live through the next fortnight!” he called back.

He turned and began his long walk back to the castle, shoving his hands deep into his pockets.

“Fall in love with her. Pfft.” Frederick shook his head. “Even if it was something that could happen, there is no way I can allow it.”

He knew what falling in love led to. He had already seen what being too emotional with Lady Andrea resulted in. “It is far better that we put the whole thing to bed.”

He kicked a stone. “I just have to get through the next fortnight, and then we can go our separate ways. If I do not rise to her bait, she will just leave me alone.”

All he had to do was survive the fortnight.