Page 40 of Wedded to the Cruel Duke

Why was it that after marriage, it appeared as if everyone had just set themselves against him?

“She has no idea just how much danger she is in,” he gritted out.

If she did, then she would understand…

“Then, why do you not let her know your concerns, milord?”

Charles sighed and set his pen down. Perhaps shediddeserve to know some of it.

To a certain degree.

But would someone like Phoebe, who had been raised in relative ignorance to the dangers ofhisworld, understand?

Charles shook his head. Besides, he did not want to shatter his wife’s innocence.

He had taken his vows to protect from the shadows and those oaths still held.

Even now.

Especiallynow.

“Not a prisoner indeed! Well, what does he callthis?”

Phoebe was seething as she left the study and she was still seething a good half hour later as she sat in the gardens besideWhiteson, who stretched out lazily on a warm patch of grass. He looked up to her and blinked his luminous eyes at her.

“Well, if he can spend the rest of his days cooped up in his study, I cannot!” she declared softly.

Whiteson let out a soft meow as if in agreement.

“You think I am right?” she turned to him with a brilliant smile. “Of course you would think that, you little rascal. And was it not you who taught me that walls are meant to be scaled?”

Charles likely did not think so similarly. Walls to him were most probably there to keep people out.

Or keep them in. Apparently, it went both ways and both of them were his intentions.

But if her husband could thrive in such conditions, isolated from the rest of the world—by God, Phoebe couldnot.

Besides, Charles did not really have to know, did he?

She could scale the short wall that ran between the two gardens, visit her family, and then be back just in time for dinner.

Or afternoon tea, even.

Phoebe had had a great deal of experience observing her husband—it had been that particular pastime that indirectly landed her in this marriage, after all—and she knew that he stuck to a strict regimen at all times. He would not leave his study earlier than six, which was truly more than enough time for her to return.

He would never notice her absence, as sad as she was to realize it.

That sorrow, however, was rather short-lived, for the very thought of seeing her sisters again after a week of marriage was more than enough to buoy her flagging spirits.

And when she talked to Daphne, she could very well ask her sister for advice on how to seduce her husband.

Or even just get him toconsiderspending a night or two in her bedchamber.

She might have accepted her lot as a spinster back then, but she decided she could not remain wholly ignorant on matters of the bed when she was married!

And definitelynotwhen she had a particularly handsome husband.

If Phoebe was anything, she was fiercely determined once she had set her mind on something, and that something presently wasCharles Montgomery.