Page 29 of The Duke’s Unwilling Bride

Moaning, I tug at my restraints, not sure if I’m trying to escape or hold on for dear life. A maelstrom of emotions races through my brain, but at the forefront is a loud, insistent voice commanding me not to cry. No matter what happens tonight, I must hold my ground. I refuse to let him see me as weak.

“This will be the last time we have this discussion,” he barks out, each word punctuated with a smack. “You are to be my bride, and that’s it.”

“But I don’t want you,” I manage to wail out between gritted teeth. “I don’t want to be saddled with someone as imbecilic and as rough as you.”

He pauses, his hand hovering over my bottom. The heat sears me, constantly igniting the warmth from his strikes. After a moment or two of uncomfortable silence, Foxford leans down until the tip of his nose brushes the shell of my ear. “You young, naïve little thing. You may protest with your mouth that you despise me and my roughness, but your body thrives on it.”

He punctuates his last word with a nip to my earlobe. The sensation zings through my body, setting between my thighs where I throb and ache mercilessly. It’s even worse than the discomfort on my bottom. “You know nothing about me or my body.”

“You think I can’t tell that you’re fairly drenched with arousal? You think my Alpha nose is so unable to smell that I can’t scent the lust flowing off of you in waves?”

“You’re wrong,” I cry out, desperate for him to stop this line of inquiry while my innocence is still intact.

“Oh, my dear, uneducated, closeted little masochist. My tart with a penchant for pain. You don’t know anything yet, and that’s just how I want you. On the cusp of understanding, yet still not knowledgeable enough that you must rely on me to fulfill your education. And make no mistake. Just because you do not wish to be my wife, nor I to be your husband, that does not mean I won’t still train this body of yours to bring me pleasure. And if you’re a good girl, you might get some in return.”

Strapped down as I am, I cannot block my ears. How I wish to drive his maddening voice from my mind. I don’t want to know anything. I want to stay in my bubble of inexperience and not give in to the words he weaves around me. If I don’t know the pleasure of marriage, I can’t miss it when I leave.

And I must.

I cannot tolerate this heat, this unreasonable ache any longer. And that’s when the tears finally escape my eyes. It’s the knowledge that no matter what I do, I’ll be trapped in this loveless existence, forced to the whims of a madman.

This is what it means to be a woman.

This is what it means to be an omega.

“Please,” I whimper, but this time, I don’t know exactly what it is I’m begging for.

I want him to let me go, but another part of me wants to stay and force him to live up to the unspoken promises he leaves hanging in the air. They loom over me like some sword of Damocles I have no words for, no picture in my mind to encapsulate the enormity.

Again, his fingers drift over my calf, palming the exposed skin, and I moan at the illicit touch. I cannot stop him. I cannot do anything but lie here and allow him to take his leave.

And what’s the point? Every time I’ve tried to fight him, he’s put me back in this position where I’m helpless. Is this to be my existence going forward? Am I to be nothing more than the doll he claims me to be? Twisted and turned to his liking, then set upon some shelf to be admired?

“I don’t want to marry you,” I mumble again, making sure my protestation is heard.

He sighs, the heat of his breath washing over the bare skin of my leg. “I know. We will always be agreed in this regard.”

CHAPTER 14

Joseph

The infernal day of my marriage soon approaches. Just a handful of days, and I’ll no longer be single or carefree. While Teresa consults with my mother over what flowers shall adorn the aisles at Saint George’s, I find myself in the only place that ever felt like home outside of my physical residence.

Special license in hand, I sit in the spectators' room at The Rose and Thorne, watching the licentious display of flesh as one of the regular girls is repeatedly flogged. But even now, I can’t bring myself to enjoy it. All my mind wants to do is replay the small scene I had with Teresa on a loop.

Normally, I prefer my girls to have at least a little bit of knowledge while still retaining the coy, shy innocence of a virgin. At least, that’s until I laid my hands on the omega who knew nothing, not even what her own body was doing. Unless, again, she’s playing me for a fool, and putting up these protestations to give herself an air of innocence she does not possess.

Bringing my elbows up to the table, I rest my head within my outstretched palms and grip my hair. It’s maddening. And at the crux of this is the innocent vixen that tries my patience at every turn. Not to mention that cousin of hers.

I’m still unable to ascertain which of them is telling the truth. There is too much coincidence and not enough answers. Part of me wants to continue to trust Middlehey, seeing as he’s been my friend just as long as the others I call brother in spirit. However, something about the events of that night still plagues me.

He seemed far too gleeful to catch us in the library, as if he knew what was happening, and was far too delighted to involve an audience. But then there’s also the business of the letters. Easing them out of my pocket, I lay them on the table in front of me, downing the rest of my port in a single gulp.

It’s a hand I still don’t recognize. And the lack of signature on both should be telling. But telling of what? What is it I’m missing? Turning each about, I study the paper, as if that will give me some clues.

Laughable, as if I’m some detective or a member of the Bow Street Runners. Still though, if I can just ascertain the truth. If I can just know once and for all that this isn’t some ploy of my soon-to-be wife to wipe away her debts. In all honesty, she’s the only one that can benefit from such an arrangement. But it still leaves the question of why.

No doubt whomever she married, the hapless chap would take care of her debts. Why set her cap at me? Unless it’s my title as well as my wealth she desires.