Page 46 of The Duchess He Couldn’t Resist

The servants served the tea and left the room. For a while, all that could be heard was the clicking of spoons against porcelain.

“Your house is really magnificent,” Claire said. “It is a little palace, exactly as the rumors suggested.”

“It is the Duke’s house.”

“And now, yours.” Claire smiled, but no warmth reached her eyes. “While I am living in a crumbling ruin.”

Marigold commented nothing although she would have loved to clarify that Claire could have used the money from the loan for repairs instead of shoes.

Abruptly, her mother stood up. She roamed the little room, touching almost everything she could. She felt the heavy fabric of the silk curtains, she ran her finger along the gilded mirror frame, she took in her hands even the Belgian porcelain vase on the mantel.

“We used to have beautiful things like this back in our home before you started selling them off.”

“If it comes as a surprise to you,” Marigold tightened her jaw, “one cannot feed on porcelain vases.”

Claire seemed to be irritated that she couldn’t provoke a reaction out of Marigold. The features on her face that could have made it lovely distorted into something malicious.

“And to think that I could have been enjoying the same privileges as you while I am now forced to endure in our old home.”

“The privileges were never yours to enjoy.”

That seemed to trigger a feral response from her mother. She eyed Marigold with spite but schooled her expression quickly.

“How ungrateful for you to say so, after all that I have endured and sacrificed, so you could marry above your station.”

It seemed that within the little time that Marigold had left her paternal home, she herself had changed, but she saw no such change in her mother. Perhaps it was exactly this stillness and calmness that made her mother seethe even more as she was taking her place back onto the couch.

“Tell me, how is married life for you?” Claire asked with fake interest.

Marigold knew enough of her mother to realize that this conversation would soon be steered to something her mother requested.

“I am adjusting,” Marigold said and drank from her tea.

“Adjusting.” A small laugh was her mother’s first answer. “I suggest you should start adjusting better.”

Her mother looked at her, her chin down, her eyes still fixed on hers, a true predator prowling the jungle for undefended victims.

“Men lose interest, Marigold,” Claire said. “All of them do, no matter how sweet they might be talking to you. A woman must secure herself in her household before that happens.”

Marigold and her mother had seen the dark side of life, one that many privileged ladies and gentlemen of the ton had the luck never to experience, and somehow, that experience brought out in them who they truly were. It hardened Claire, made her cynical and selfish. As for Marigold, she held on to her optimism and innocence as much as she could.

“And regrettably, the only way to establish yourself in the household when you are a woman is a child.” Claire leaned in with a sharp look in her eyes. “Are you with child yet?”

Marigold nearly choked on her tea, and she grabbed a napkin to press her lips, avoiding answering the question.

“I see,” Claire read her reaction clearly. “Men wander, and only a child keeps them tethered. Have a child, and you will have secured that allowance for life. Make sure you do that before it’s too late. Preferably a boy. Girls are useless, especially to a duke.”

Marigold pressed her lips together, deciding she would not give her mother the satisfaction of an answer. She had long learned to expect the worst from her mother, and she had yet to disappoint.

“You really did one good thing in your life, and that was accepting the Duke’s proposal. Now, what I need you to do, Marigold, is to make sure you keep this position for both of us.”

“As I have said before, Mother, I am the Duchess. You are not.”

“And I am still your mother!” Claire raised her voice. “I will not allow you to disrespect me like that again.”

“Mother—”

“Your cousin Charlie is coming from the colonies,” Claire cut her off. “He will take his place as the Earl, claiming his title and his inheritance. And I am asking you is where does that leave me?”