“Take Off the Wedding Dress,” the Duke Said Coldly. “This Marriage Is Just Revenge.” — But When His Fingers Touched Clara’s Bare Skin, His Carefully Planned Vengeance Became a Prison Neither of Them Could Escape.

PART 2

Morning came with the metallic clatter of street sweepers outside the window.

Clara awoke in a bed too large for one person. The sheets were crisp, smelling of lavender and starch, completely devoid of the human warmth she had briefly craved in the middle of the night. She lay staring at the plaster ceiling rose for ten minutes, cataloging her new reality.

She was a duchess.

She was also, for all intents and purposes, a prisoner of war.

She dressed herself in a subdued navy day dress — old, the hem slightly frayed, a stark contrast to the absurd wedding gown currently draped over the chaise. When she descended the grand staircase, the house felt like a museum. Beautiful, immaculate, and entirely lifeless.

She found the breakfast room by following the faint smell of roasted coffee. Arthur was already there. He sat at the far end of a long mahogany table, the morning paper spread wide, a cup of black tea at his elbow. He looked up when she entered. There was a brief tightening of his jaw, a momentary recalibration — as if he had forgotten she existed in his house.

“Good morning.”

Clara took a seat halfway down the table, refusing to shout from the opposite end but giving him his space. A footman materialized instantly, pouring her coffee and uncovering silver dishes of eggs, kippers, and toast. The staff moved with a tense, hushed urgency, keeping their eyes firmly fixed on the floor.

She noticed. They were terrified of him.

“Did you sleep?” Arthur asked. He didn’t lower the paper.

“Well enough.” She lied. “The mattress was harder than I am used to. And the silence of the house was deafening.”

“And you?”

“I always sleep,” he said flatly.

He folded the paper and set it aside. In the morning light, he looked older. The shadows under his eyes were bruised and purple.

“My solicitor will send over the papers regarding your allowance this afternoon. Five hundred pounds a quarter. Is that sufficient?”

“It is exorbitant,” Clara said, buttering a piece of toast. “I am unaccustomed to having more than five pounds to my name at any given time. I may buy a very small, very loud dog.”

Arthur stopped chewing. He stared at her, trying to determine if she was mocking him. Clara simply took a bite of her toast, her expression mild.

“There are rules,” Arthur said, abandoning his plate. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “You may spend your days as you see fit. You may visit whom you please, though I expect you to avoid men with terrible reputations to spare the family name any further scandal. Naturally, in public, we will present a united front. The ton must believe this was a sudden, passionate match. Your father’s humiliation is only complete if society believes you chose me over the grander titles he was courting — and that you are perfectly content with your choice.”

Clara swallowed the dry toast. It tasted like ash.

“You want me to play the besotted bride.”

“I want you to be a convincing duchess. That requires a certain level of participation from you.”

“Then with respect, Your Grace —” Clara set down her knife. “— if you glare at me in the middle of Almack’s the way you are glaring at me now, people will assume you are planning to murder me, not bed me.”

Arthur’s mouth twitched. It wasn’t a smile, not exactly, but the anger in his face receded by a fraction.

“I am capable of acting. Are you?”

“Good. Because we have the Harrington ball tonight.”

“I sent our regrets.”

“I overrode them this morning. I gave a note to the footman an hour ago.” Clara wiped her fingers with a linen napkin, her voice perfectly calm. “If we hide in this house the day after our wedding, the gossips will say you forced me. They will say I am weeping in my chambers. If you want my father to look like a fool who lost his prize, I need to be seen immediately — looking radiant and wealthy.”

Arthur looked at her with a new, guarded expression. It was the look of a man who had bought a horse, expecting it to buck, only to find it calculating the distance to the next fence.

“You are surprisingly pragmatic about a marriage designed to ruin you.”

Clara met his gaze.

“My father ruined me the day I was born, Arthur. He spent my dowry on racehorses when I was ten. He used my face as collateral for his debts when I was eighteen. I have spent my entire life being traded by angry, desperate men.”

She picked up her coffee cup, her hand perfectly steady.

“At least you are paying me well.”

Silence settled over the breakfast room. The clock on the mantel ticked heavily. Arthur stood up, his chair scraping loudly against the floorboards.

“I will have the carriage brought round at eight.”

He walked toward the door, pausing just before he crossed the threshold. He didn’t look back.

“Buy the dog if you wish,” he said softly.

Then he was gone.