Page 48 of Wedded to the Cruel Duke

Now, she had learned to simply live with it. She had become adept at disregarding it to a certain degree.

Still, there were times when it bothered her.

Not tonight, though, she told herself firmly.Tonight, I will not let it get to me.

She had learned soon after becoming a spinster that the best way to quiet that mocking voice was to find something else to occupy herself with. Reading certainly would not do—it only spoke louder during the quiet moments.

The awkward moments.

She sighed as she lit one of the candles that Amelia had insisted on using before she had convinced her maid to throw the curtains open.

“Hmm… looks like they do have their purpose,” she mused to herself as she tiptoed out of her bedchamber.

She looked out into the empty corridor, half expecting someone—perhaps Huxley or even Charles himself—to jump out of the shadows and tell her to go back to bed, almost as if she was an errant child caught sneaking past her bedtime.

She knew that Charles had warned her to stay within the confines of the manor as much as possible. She knew he probably would have strong objections to her wandering about in the darkness—no, she wascertainhe would have them, those strong objections.

But she found that on nights when sleep eluded her, a nice walk often did the trick far better than a glass of warm milk ever could.

Phoebe never really knew why he was so suspicious of just about everything. It was almost as if he feared that someone or something would come at him if he so much as let his guard down for a breath.

It is rather hard to think of him being afraid of anything, she thought to herself as she quietly made her way out through the back of the manor.

As soon as she was outside, she let out a soft sigh, feeling her chest expand as her lungs took in the fresh air. She smiled slightly as she felt the cool breeze blowing at her cheeks. Overhead, the stars were sprinkled across the night sky, almost as if someone had spilled a bag of tiny diamonds onto a sea of dark velvet.

She turned back and saw that the manor was shrouded in darkness in very much the same way she had always seen it from her bedchamber back in Townsend House.

It was funny how she never saw it as foreboding—only that it was mysterious and somehowthrilling.

Just like its lord and master.

As soon as thoughts of Charles cropped up, she felt the burn creeping up her cheeks and knew they werenotfrom the cold wind. It seemed that the more she saw him, the more she could not put him out of her head.

And after that kiss they shared in the dining room, it felt as if he had lit a fire in her that could not be extinguished. A savage hunger forsomethingthat she could not sate.

She wanted to feel his lips molding over hers once more. She yearned for those strong arms to encase her in a steely, passionate embrace. She longed to feel his skin on hers, as strange as it may sound.

“I suppose this is why they warn young ladies from engaging in such proclivities,” she muttered to herself as she instinctively drew her robe over her frame. “This…it is enough to drive one insane just by thinking about it over and over again…”

But Phoebe was no longer some frail debutante—she had been very much a spinster before she had become a wife. She supposed that certain…desireswere bound to crop up in her age.

Or were they? Perhaps she was just odd like that—just as she had been awkward in so many things.

She let out a sigh as she let her mind wander freely, allowing the night air to carry her cares away for the time being.

Tomorrow is another day, she told herself.I shall worry about it when it comes…

She slowly turned the corner when she saw it—a faint, flickering light emanating from the gaps in the ground a short distance from her.

Phoebe frowned as she slowly approached it, realizing all too late just where her late-night rumination had taken her.

It wasthetrapdoor. The very same one where she first met Charles after chasing Whiteson over the wall.

Only this time, her feline friend was nowhere to be found and she was dressed in nothing more than a thin robe and an even thinner shift.

At that moment, Phoebe realized that perhaps it was not such a good idea to go venturing out of the manor in such flimsy clothing. After all, Wentworth Park was quite different from Townsend House, with its draconian rules for just aboutanything.

Perhaps those rules truly had been set for a reason.