Page 45 of Wedded to the Cruel Duke

It was at that point that her husband perhaps recalled that they still had an audience before them and with a furious glare in their direction, he bit out, “Out! All of you!”

The servants did not need to be told twice and hastily left the foyer, leaving only Phoebe standing there to face the wrath of her husband.

“I am so sorry, Your Lordship—Charles,” she amended, hoping her voice sounded contrite enough despite the fluttering joy thatfilled her to know that he had been most distraught to find her gone.

And that he actually worried that she had left him.

“I had only meant to visit my sisters for a short while, but I lost track of the time,” she explained. “Not that it should absolve me, but I thought that you should know that I never intended to leave you or run away from you.”

His scathing glare did not soften in the slightest. Instead, he loomed over her like the fearful, domineering beast that Daphne had thought him to be. She could see that there was no reasoning with him. That he did not,will nothear whatever it was she had to say.

Whatever joy she felt seemed to disappear in that instant.

Phoebe, however, was done bowing and scraping to his wishes. Shehadapologized to him and admitted her fault in this matter. Could he not see that it was his dismissive attitude towards her that sent her over the wall?

She straightened her back and lifted her chin defiantly at him, looking him squarely in the eyes.

Charles seemed to be taken aback at first, before glowering right back at her.

“You areforbiddenfrom ever leaving Wentworth Park again!” he lashed out.

Phoebe’s lips curled into a sardonic smile. “So, youdointend to hold me a prisoner in this place?”

“You have never seen a true prison, my dear wife,” he told her in a low, dangerous voice. “Hopefully, you will never encounter it in your entire lifetime.”

“But I did, did I not?” Phoebe met his gaze squarely. “That room beneath the trapdoor where we first met—that was a prison, was it not?”

He looked confused for a moment, and then shook his head. “You are not allowed to go there as well.”

“Very well then,” she retorted sarcastically. “You might as well write a book onallthe places I am forbidden to go. I suppose you can write several volumes of it—”

“I am doing this for your own good!”

Phoebe was much too incensed with him right now to even consider that hemightactually be doing this out of some misguided concern for her well-being.

However, she absolutelydespisedbeing yelled at and treated like a child. His cold treatment of her would have been much more preferable to this.

Never before had she met a man who made her want to tear her hair at the roots and at the same time, press her body to his in such wanton ways that the thought of it made her toes curl in her shoes.

As she glared at him, he stood before her like an implacable wall. An extremely handsome, devastatinglysensualwall.

What would it feel like to be kissed by those lips?Phoebe wondered as her angry gaze drifted to the sensual fullness of his mouth, pressed into a line of irritated arrogance as it was.

The combination of repressed lust and anger never made for a rational concoction, but those two had been brewing within her chest since the day he appeared at Townsend Manor.

Simmered quietly as the days passed between them.

And now, it boiled over.

She crossed the distance before him, noting the wariness that flashed in his eyes. Without hesitation, she grasped the back of his head and pulled him down to her lips.

For the first time in her life, she was gleefully thankful for the advantage that her height provided her.

Her eyes squeezed shut as she felt his initial resistance. She braced herself for the rejection that she knew would be swift and merciless in its coming.

She certainly did not expect him tokiss her back.

Her lips, angry and fierce, were still the softest he had ever felt.