Page 21 of Wedded to the Cruel Duke
“Dinner will be at seven,” he informed her. “As you might already have guessed, I keep to a very strict schedule, and I would appreciate it if you keep to it as well.”
“Oh, I know all about it,” she told him with a slight nod. “I can see you from my windows in Townsend House, you know.”
He appeared to be quite taken aback by her bluntness and then added, “You might also have noticed that I do not leave the premises, so neither should you.”
“You mean to keep me a prisoner here in Wentworth Park?” she gaped at him. “Can I not even visit my family?”
“I shall consider it,” he relented.
“Very well then. Anything else?”
He frowned at her. “I also do not like visitors, so I would appreciate it if you do not have them over. I like things to be kept in their proper place. The curtains must be kept closed at all times. As long as you can keep to these rules and the routines set in this household, then I do not see any reason why we cannot get along.”
He half-expected her to react negatively to the rules he had set forth before her. His bride, however, did not seem the least bit perturbed by them.
“Naturally, I shall abide by the rules of my new residence,” she told him calmly, as if everything he had said before was completely superfluous. “What I want to know, however, is why you did not apprise me of your conditions beforehand?”
Charles was taken aback for a moment. He had been so used to women talking in circles, going around and around a topic before they got to the point—if they ever did. Somehow, he found her bluntness rather…refreshing.
But, of course, he would not tell her that. Not yet, anyway.
“I have my own reasons,” he told her evasively.
“I see,” she nodded, as if that explained everything—which, for now, it did.
But then, he should have expected that she would have her own questions as well.
“Will we be sharing a bed, then, my Lord?” she asked him in such a bold and forthright manner. That, and the way she looked at him with such bright eyes, had him fumbling with his wits for a moment.
Did he want to share a bed with her? He honestly did not know. He had never shared a bed with anyone since he was a child, so Charles gave her the answer he was most comfortable with at that moment.
“No.”
Then, he turned on his heel and strode away from her, inwardly shaking his head at himself and the woman he left stranded in the middle of the hallway.
It was only a little later that he realized that perhaps he should not have left his new wife standing there, alone.
Charles sighed to himself as he made his way to his study regardless. He was barely an hour into his marriage and already, it would seem that he had not the temperament for it.
Phoebe could only stare after Charles as he marched away from her so quickly that one would think the hounds of hell were snapping at his heels.
I could not possibly have been that intimidating, could I?
In the past, she had been considered rather intimidating by many young ladies and gentlemen for her height. She towered over most of the other delicate debutantes and there were even gentlemen whorefusedto dance with her on the account of her being close to their height or even taller than them.
Her new husband, however, was much taller than any other gentleman she had had the discomfort of dealing with and withsuch broad shoulders at that. How could he feel intimidated by her when he stood well above… well,lessermen?
Or maybe, I have made him extremely uncomfortable with my bluntness, she thought to herself with a sigh.
It could not be helped, however—she tended to say whatever came to mind when she was nervous, and she was.
Very much so.
After all, it is not every day that one gets married and moves into another residence…
Although, thesaidresidence was right beside her old one.
Still, the point of the matter was that she had married a man she scarcely knew beyond her avid study of his habits from her bedroom windows. Eventhatwould not have told her very much about his true nature.