Page 20 of The Duke and His Jilted Bride

“I can, actually. I felt it the entire time. And now I know why.” She met his gaze. “And the thing is, I would rather be chosen by a man who chose me because he had no other choice than to be accepted carelessly by a man who could have chosen out of a hundred different women, and worse still, who loved someone else. Because that’s the truth, isn’t it? So you don’t need to try to be Frederick. I did not want Frederick in the first place. I wanted– " She stopped herself and looked back at the pianoforte. “What I wanted was not to be humiliated. And you helped in that sense. And now you have given me this.” She touched the edge of the instrument lightly, with one finger. “So I am not sad. I’m just overwhelmed and thinking.”

He said nothing. He found there was nothing he could say that would adequately follow that.

“Thank you,” she said a moment later.

“You needn’t thank me,” he said, and he meant it. “Use it however you like… But perhaps tomorrow. Meanwhile, I will fetch someone to escort you to your other rooms.”

She nodded once, although he got the impression she was not satisfied with that answer, and that she had been thanking him for something else.

But Evander could not be like Frederick and risk doing something that would humiliate her and make things awkward. So he nodded in return and left the room, and made his way up to go to bed for the evening.

Her rooms were at the end of the north corridor. Inside in the darkness, she made out three large windows that faced the park, a dressing room through an archway that was nearly the size of her aunt's entire upper floor, and a bed that had been made up tightly.

Evander's rooms were somewhere through the adjoining door, the same suite separated by a sitting room that was some sort of neutral space between them. She lay in the enormous bed in the enormous room and looked at the ceiling.

Already she could tell that Norfolk at night was nothing like London at night. London was never this quiet. There was always something – a cart, voices, a dog. Here, when everyone went to bed, it was quiet. And the silence was oppressive in a way that made her aware of her own breathing.

It also made her aware of the fact that she could hear him.

Not loudly, but through the sitting room wall and whatever separated them, the even sound of Evander readying himself for bed. It was a strange domestic thing – more domestic and disquieting than the ring on her finger, and the staff addressing her as Your Grace, and the matching set of keys Mrs. Foulger had pressed into her hand seriously before being dismissed for the night.

Against all reason, she smiled at the ceiling, mind filling with images of what she could make of this place with him. It was better than the alternative, surely? Than being a spinster, alone, with the penance her father had left behind, God rest his soul?

Then she stopped. She was not going to do this. She had gone into this arrangement with her eyes open and her expectations managed, and she was not going to unarrange them now just because he had given her a music room and touched her. She couldn’t risk being that foolish and naive. She had watched women like that all her life from the sidelines, mistaking attention for devotion and kindness for love, and then they learned, usually in public and publicised in the rags, that they had been wrong about everything.

So Aurelia was going to be sensible. She was going to go to sleep, and in the morning she was going to be a duchess – heaven knew she could be nothing else now.

Through the wall, Evander must have closed the door to the sitting room, and it felt strangely poetic. He had mapped their marriage precisely in his mind. That seemed like the sort of thing a man like him would do. She had her domain and he had his. And that empty domain between them that would maybe, in other marriages, be filled with affection and trust, would just be another empty room for them.

And that would be fine.

Breakfast time at Carrstone Manor was very different than breakfast with Aunt Violet. It became clear the moment she came downstairs at half past seven and found the table in the morning room already set up with plates and tea. Usually at this time Violet would be half-awake and composing morning poetry in the parlour. Here, Evander was at the head the table in his shirtsleeves. He wasn’t undressed exactly, but definitely more relaxed than she had seen him in London, reading a newspaper with his left hand and eating toast with his right.

Both dogs were lying either under or next to his chair, like animals who had obviously been doing this for years but didn’t mind being disturbed by someone new. Evander looked up when she entered, and Aurelia froze.

“Sit wherever you like,” he said casually, returning to his reading. “Mrs. Foulger will bring whatever you want. She has menus for you to review eventually, but today you will have to take what I usually take.” Then he paused, and arched a brow. “But you needn’t join me if you don’t want to. You can take your breakfast in your rooms from now on if you’d like.”

Aurelia bit her lip and shook her head. She passed a mirror at the entrance to the morning room and assessed her appearance. The bright blue colour of her day gown made her look more rested than she felt. She had done her own hair that morning since she hadn’t decided on a lady’s maid. She hoped he would find it acceptable.

But given the look of him, she also thought he probably didn’t care one whit what she looked like, so long as he had his dogs, his Norfolkian broadsheet, and his strong-smelling coffee.

Having probably heard their voices, Mrs. Foulger appeared in the doorway. “Your Grace,” she said to Aurelia, decisively warm and a little out of breath. “Has His Grace told you about the menus? Would you like to see them now?”

Aurelia had barely opened her mouth before Evander said, without looking up from his paper, “Leave her be for now, Mrs. Foulger. She will have whatever is hot. But fetch some tea and sugar, would you? She had nothing on the journey yesterday.”

Mrs. Foulger disappeared, and Aurelia sat opposite him, squinting at the sun that streamed in through the windows. There were many potted plants in this room and she wondered who had put them there. It was like the outside world was seeping indoors. She thought, indulgently, that it suited a gentleman like Evander – the farmer duke.

As she adjusted her napkin on her lap, she said, “I did have something, actually. I had that pasty at the coaching inn at noon.”

“Half a pasty,” he said, the whisper of a smile on his lips. “And Mrs. Foulger said she found your supper tray untouched outside your rooms this morning. You should eat.”

She looked at him across the table. The dogs had not moved. The morning light was coming through the windows at a low angle and catching the edge of his jaw. She became aware with some annoyance that she was looking too long, and quickly moved to take some fruit from a bowl.

Two footmen arrived with more things on trays. Then Mrs. Foulger came in with the newspapers for her – because supposedly there was a difference here between what the women and men read from the press. And she stood by long enough to ensure adequate coverage before being dismissed again by Evander. The table now had more food and papers on it than Aurelia knew what to do with. Why had she expected any differently? Evander was a duke. She could have guessed their lifestyle from the way Frederick had paraded himself around with his caravan of shiny new vehicles.

“Do you usually have such a lavish spread?” she asked, gasping a little as she felt the wet nose of a dog press against her leg. She peered under the table. Nike had migrated over to her side. “Shall I… Does she want something?”

“Oh, always,” Evander said through a laugh. He poured himself more coffee and suggested pouring for her, but she refused. “But you shouldn’t feed her at the table. I saw your Aunt Violet made a habit of it, sneaking scraps to her dogs. We don’t do that here.”