Page 23 of Wedded to the Cruel Duke

“Are there some things I need to know about living in Wentworth Park?” she asked of her maid. “Like, what the Marquess enjoys. How he takes his meals…”

When he last left the house. What that room under the trapdoor is for.

And why does he seem to be suspicious of just about everything and everyone?

“I… I cannot say, milady,” Amelia stammered. “I have not been working very long at Wentworth Park…”

“Oh. I see.”

“Mrs. Hodgkins chose me because I knew how to do hair,” she explained plaintively. “And I know how to care for garments and such.”

Phoebe smiled at the maid and shook her head. It seemed that she would not be able to gain any information from the poor thing.

“Well, Amelia,” she said with a half-shrug. “I shall leave myself in your care, then, for I know very little about hair.”

The maid let out a nervous chuckle. “I shall do my very best to make sure His Lordship will be unable to take his eyes off you, milady!”

Phoebe only smiled and nodded wordlessly as she allowed the maid to lead her into her rooms. Perhaps Charles had chosen Amelia specifically because she did not have much knowledge of the goings on at Wentworth Park.

If she wished to know more about her new residence and her husband, it seemed as if she was going to have to get her information elsewhere…

CHAPTER TEN

Phoebe appeared at the dining hall just a few minutes before the stroke of seven. The table had been set for both herself and the Marquess, but there was no food on the table as of yet. She frowned in confusion, but decided not to say anything against it.

“It is great to see that you are punctual,” an icy voice drawled from behind her in the doorway, causing her to jump the slightest bit.

She turned around to see Charles strolling into the dining room, his strides long, almost eating up the space between them instantaneously. His hair appeared slightly tousled, as if he had come from strolling outside. Huxley trailed in from behind him, looking just the slightest bit frazzled.

Of course, he would have just come in from outside, she thought to herself.It is around this time that he usually finishes his routine inspection of the grounds of Wentworth Park.

“My Lady?”

She shook her head and looked at O’Malley in confusion. He subtly gestured with his head and her gaze swiveled to one side of the room, where Charles was standing before a chair, his hands clasped behind his back.

“Oh!” she squeaked, when she realized that he had been waiting for her. “I apologize. My mind wandered off for a moment…”

She rushed over to the chair he had so kindly pulled out for her, nearly stumbling over her feet in the process. Her cheeks erupted with warmth as she realized how she must have looked like a newborn foal who had yet to learn how to use its legs.

But if Charles had noticed any of it, he certainly did not let it on as his face remained as stoically impassive as it always did.

She sat down hastily and let out a sigh of relief. At least here in her seat, she was not so prone to falling...

Why, oh why, do I always find myself afflicted with an extreme lack of grace every time I am nervous?

She watched as he strode over to the seat across hers on the dining table, his every step sure. Phoebe inwardly noted that he walked with a certain predatory grace that would not have been unusual in a panther.

The moment he sat down, she heard a loud clap from O’Malley and almost immediately, a parade of servants in perfectly starched and pressed uniforms paraded out from one of the doors, each one of them bringing covered trays of a wide array of dishes. They carefully set the dishes on the table and uncovered them, before standing to the side with blank faces.

The entire spectacle was rather… unnerving.

All that was forgotten, however, when she beheld the feast before her. Succulent cuts of meat roasted to perfection. A vast selection of what appeared to be the freshest vegetables. Baskets of freshly baked bread.

All this food just for the two of us?Phoebe could not help but gawk at the spread before her.

“You might want to tell Huxley your culinary preferences next time,” Charles told her. “We were not so certain what you would like, so the kitchens decided to make a little of everything.”

“It all looks so wonderful,” she muttered. “I do not even know where to start.”