Page 69 of Married to the Duke By Midnight

“Let me go,” she told him, even though he was not holding onto her anymore.

Robert nodded as he looked into her eyes. Jo pried her eyes from his and hurried to the door.

“I only did it because I care about you, Jo,” she heard him call behind her, but she did not stop to acknowledge his statement.

Usually, Jo’s anger deflated slowly the longer she walked, but now it only seemed to grow with each step. How could he? He signed the contract. How could he not understand? The fragmented sentences swirled in her mind, intermingled with one imaginary heated argument after another.

She understood that he had not wanted to make a spectacle, that he wanted to protect her. Part of her was thrilled. Yet another part was devastated. If she was to abide by their contract, this should only ever be a partnership and nothing deeper…

Jo felt the tears prickle her eyes as she stared blindly at the bright sea.

Blast it, she was falling in love with her husband. Over the past ten days, the many times they had come together to pleasure each other, she had let herself be lulled into an idea that there was more between them than there was.

And now Robert’s mistake had shown her where the limits of their relationship were: He could overstep, and Jo could get angry, but have no power to do anything. She could overstep and end up with a broken heart.

A sob wrenched itself out of Jo’s throat. She had been so stupid.

“Duchess, Duchess,” Jo heard someone call behind her.

She ignored whoever it was, hoping they would believe she was not able to hear them due to the wind and the sea.

“Lady Riddlesmarsh!” someone shrieked at the top of their lungs.

Jo turned to see Lady Clopton waving frantically at her. Jo quickly dried the tears from her eyes, vaguely aware that she was wearing neither her hat nor her gloves.

Lady Clopton was walking surprisingly fast in the sand, flanked by Lord Clopton and at least half a dozen footmen carrying different items, two of them parasols to keep over their masters’ heads, and two others holding what looked like mahogany chairs upholstered with crimson silk.

Jo closed her eyes and cursed inwardly, while she allowed the Cloptons and their entourage to draw closer. She needed to be alone to gather her thoughts. To understand what this new development meant for her marriage. She needed to be away from Robert, away from the ton. Away from Brighton.

31

“But that is ridiculous, Jo,” Robert exclaimed.

He had been pacing the floor of the small study after she left, anxiously waiting for her to return, to sit him down and calmly explain her reasoning to him, like she had the first day in the house. But instead, he had heard her walk up the stairs and into the bedroom they had been sharing.

Robert had waited, wanting to give her more time, but when he had realized she would not be seeking him out, decided that he had to. They should be able to find an amicable solution together. He had perhaps overstepped a bit by speaking to a solicitor without her, but her desire to leave was completely out of proportion with what he had done. Distance was the last thing they needed.

Jo’s jaws clenched as well as her fists when she stared back at him and Robert instantly started regretting his hot-headed comment.

“It is not ridiculous, Robert,” Jo told him coldly. “Don’t call me ridiculous.”

She turned toward her portmanteau to throw her nightgowns into it. He had dismissed Miss Fisher and the maid when he entered the room, but of course it did not deter Jo from continuing packing. The room was full of dresses slung over chairs and the bed and open valises as well as the large portmanteau.

“I was not calling you ridiculous. I was calling the fact that you are leaving ridiculous, and you know that,” Robert argued hotly, angry that she would dismiss him by turning her back to him.

“Please look at me, Jo,” Robert pleaded when she did not respond.

Jo looked briefly over her shoulder for a second. Her hair and clothes were disheveled from the wind at the beach. Robert itched to step close to her and dishevel her even further right on top of the piles of her clothes on the bed.

“Jo,” he repeated, and her name was a plea this time.

“I looked,” Jo snapped, as she stuffed her stockings down beside the nightgowns. The haphazard packing was nothing like the analytical and collected woman he had come to know. It seemed unfathomable that Jo would pack without creating a list first, but it only spoke to the urgency of her desire to leave.

“Now, tell me what you wanted to say,” she demanded. Her shoulders were rigid and her back tense as she was poised over the portmanteau.

Robert gritted his teeth. This relationship was supposed to be calm. A giving partnership, a fun friendship, satisfying bed partners. This was nothing like it. Instead, it was very close to a lovers’ quarrel, with them so angry and frustrated at each other that they might start screaming profanities at each other at any moment.

Cold fear ran down Robert’s spine at the thought that Jo was falling in love with him. He could not live with such an imbalance. He could not forgive himself if he had misled her and ended up breaking her heart by being unable to reciprocate her feelings.