Married to the Marquess

by Rebecca Connolly

  Kate was stunned by what Lydia was sharing with her and highly doubted even Derek knew these things about his mother.

  “My one regret, Katherine, is that I did not use my own voice,” Lydia continued softly, sounding suddenly very weary. “So many times, I merely stood silently by and let him speak for us both. He listens to my counsel now, but very rarely does he accept it. My children could have used a mother who defended them, not one who let others determine their upbringing. I so wish I would have stood up to him once or twice. Now it is far too late to do so.”

  Wondering how to respond to the sudden emotion, Kate set her free hand on the other woman’s arm, and it was quickly covered.

  Lydia sniffed a little and offered her a polite smile. “I am so pleased you and Derek are more united now. He could use a good, strong woman at his side.”

  “I pray I can be both,” Kate murmured.

  “You already are,” Lydia assured her. “We would not have chosen you for him otherwise.”

  Just then, Derek came storming out of the back of the house, looking murderous and glowering more fiercely than Kate had ever seen him do. And she had been on the receiving end of quite a few of his glowers.

  “We are leaving, Kate,” he barked, taking her hand. He nodded to Lydia, but said only, “Mother.”

  “Derek,” Lydia replied softly, looking between her son and the house with worry.

  Kate could say nothing before Derek was hauling her along behind him, taking them around the house rather than walking through it.

  “Derek, what happened?” she gasped, struggling to keep up.

  He shook his head, but his grip on her hand tightened.

  Their carriage was already waiting for them in front of the house. Wooster must have truly been a wonder of a butler if he could anticipate Derek’s storming out of the duke’s home. Kate climbed in without much assistance, and Derek was quick to follow, sitting next to her, having still not relinquished his rather crushing hold on her hand.

  When they had departed, she looked over at him again. His jaw was so tense she could see a muscle in it ticking. His eyes were fixed straight ahead, and he barely blinked.

  “Derek,” she murmured softly.

  Again, he shook his head, though the movement was very slight, and if possible, his jaw grew even tighter. Any tighter, she thought, and his teeth were likely to crack against each other. But he refused to even look at her, and so she dared not push him. She was simply relieved he was holding onto her so tightly, rather than pushing her away.

  They were silent the rest of the journey home, and only when they were back in the house, and ensconced in the music room, of all places, did Derek finally release her hand. She resisted the urge to rub it, feeling that might be the only way to bring back sensation into her fingers. But it was hardly appropriate at the moment.

  “Derek, what happened?” she asked softly, watching as he paced before her in agitation.

  He said nothing, and only rubbed his hands over his face.

  Worry and a bit of panic rising within her, she took a few steps closer. “Derek, tell me what is wrong right now!” she cried. “What did your father say?”

  He laughed a short, bitter laugh and finally looked over at her. “What did my father say?” he echoed, a fire starting in his eyes that frightened her. “I will tell you what my father said. He said that I was shaming the family.”

  “What?” she gasped, feeling her knees give a bit. How could anyone ever think that of Derek?

  “Quite,” he confirmed, nodding. “I am shaming the family, because I have not bedded my wife, which, apparently, is something that is my father’s business.”

  Kate flushed ever so slightly at his bluntness, but she said nothing.

  “I am failing in my duties as a future duke,” Derek continued pacing again, “because I refused to let my father control my procreation. I thought that helping him with David would be enough to please him, but no. No, it doesn’t matter that David is off in Scotland wrangling up sheep thieves for the dukedom, which I encouraged. No, now it is my turn to receive the sharp end of the iron hot prod my father so keenly wields. I am a failure as a member of the aristocracy because my haste to produce an heir is matched by my haste for a coffin.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “Sorry?” he cried, whirling away. “She’s sorry!” He threw his hands up and turned back. “Do you even realize what this means, Kate?”

  She opened her mouth to reply, but he went on, overriding her.

  “I have disappointed my father. I, who have always done everything that he wanted, have failed him. I am the future Duke of Ashcombe; everything that he has and everything that he is lies in my future. A failed marquess is in line to inherit the dukedom. He has never raged at me like that before, Kate, not for something that I have done. Do you realize that he could cut me off for this? That he could will everything over to David, purely out of spite?”

  “He wouldn’t,” she breathed in horror.

  “Oh, I can assure you, he threatened to.” Derek laughed again, though it was forced and sounded rather crazed. “He threatened to turn my inheritance over to David! He cannot even bear to look at David, and he threatened to make him the next duke! Have you any idea what that would do to me? I would be left with nothing, Kate. Not a damn thing and no family to speak of. All of this because I have not done my duty in securing future bloodlines. Do you want to know what his suggestion was, Kate?”

  Again she tried to respond, but he didn’t wait.

  “He said, ‘Take your wife and force her to do her duty to us, however you must.’” He ran a shaking hand through his hair, and shook his head. “Can you believe that, Kate? He wants me to force you. For duty. For the family. The title. Our entire lives and the air we breathe for the sake of duty. We are nothing more than a pair of horses, forced to breed for our master’s benefit. That is our purpose.”

  Kate swallowed back a wash of emotions, and tried to come up with the best way to reply to such an outburst. She heard his mother’s threat in her mind, and considered what she might be able to do to help, to prevent the ruin they seemed to be on the brink of. “So...” she began softly, “would you like me to prepare for having a child? Is that it?”

  “No, that is bloody well not it!” he yelled. “Why do you always think everything has to be just so? No, Kate!”

  “No?” she asked in confusion, her stomach starting to tense.

  “No.”

  She licked her bottom lip in apprehension, then slowly asked, “You don’t want a child?”

  “No, I bloody well do not! I am not my father, Kate. I do not produce a child just for the sake of fulfilling duty, no matter how important.” He gave her a disgusted look, and said, “It galls me that you are willing to.”

  She struggled to maintain calm, especially under so severe an expression. She hated his rage, but she could not refute it. They were helpless, in a way, but it need not be a sort of slavery. If he saw it that way… She took a slow breath, and then carefully spoke, “We do have duties, Derek, and it is naïve to think otherwise.”

  “Naïve?” he cried, coming towards her. “Naïve, Kate? When have I ever been naïve? I have always done my duty, and to the letter. I lived for duty, I prepared for duty, and I married for duty, and look where that has brought me!”

  Her tightening stomach now churned at his words, and for the first time in a long while, her blood began to boil. Her breathing began to quicken, and she met his furious gaze with an equally heated one of her own. “You are not the only one who has spent their whole life focused on duty, Derek. Need I remind you?”

  “No, I thank you, I recall quite clearly how arduous your life was before you married me,” he replied, holding a hand up. “You did your duty and without too terribly much of a hunt at that. Bravo, Kate.”

  “I hardly had a choice,” she hissed, her fists clenching.

  “Oh, and who would you have chosen, hmm? Really, Kate, you sna
tched the cream of the crop.”

  “Did I?” she asked with a bitter laugh of her own. “How very smart of me. Well, in that case, forcible marriage might be the best suggestion for a miserable life.”

  “If you are so miserable, then why remain married to me, hmm?” he asked, standing directly before her, mocking her with his eyes. “It’s not as though Society expects it. Why not give in to their doubts and prove them all right? Ask me for an annulment, Kate. Go ahead.”

  “Well, if you want the shame of getting out of this marriage, then be my guest!” she yelled, flinging a hand out to the side.

  “Maybe the shame would be worth it!” he returned, his voice reverberating off of the walls of the music room in an eerie fashion.

  Silence rang for a few, heart pounding moments, and when she saw that he would not continue, that he would not take the words back, her heart stuttered and her toes went numb. “If you wish it,” she said slowly, feeling rather frozen in place, “then that is what shall be done. I will accept my fate as you so deign it to be, my lord.”

  Derek stared at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable, his body coiled with tension.

  She waited in vain for him to take the words back, to see the matter for what it was. To remember what they had gained these last weeks.

  “Perhaps, it would be for the best,” he finally said coldly, brushing past her. He paused at the door, then added, “…Katherine.” He slammed the door, not caring that it rattled on its hinges, nor how the house seemed to shake with the force of it.

  Kate somehow waited until she was positive Derek was out of hearing range before the sobs escaped her. She covered her mouth, but even that could not muffle the frenzy of panicked cries that came tumbling out of her. She collapsed to her knees, then sank fully against the cold marble floor, unable and unwilling to stem the tide of tears that her broken heart threatened to unleash, her sobs echoing against the floors and the walls of the room, and louder still within her heart.

  Hours later, feeling drained and worn down, Kate sat in the dining room, waiting for dinner. Eventually, she had picked herself off of the music room floor and taken herself up to her room, where she had restlessly dozed. Waking had been painful, as she realized that it had been no nightmare, but her reality. The tears she had thought long since faded returned, and it had been some time before she felt calm once more.

  Now she sat and waited, knowing that her eyes were puffy and that she hardly looked presentable. But she was determined to be here, to eat beside her husband, and perhaps, if he allowed her, to beg for his forgiveness. She dared to hope that something could yet be salvaged from her crumbling marriage.

  She glanced at the clock again, knowing that it was only going to be three minutes later than the last time she had looked. She had been sitting here for ages, and she was growing more weary by the second.

  “Would your ladyship like to eat now?” asked Molly, her errant blond hair peeking out from under her cap as she poked her head into the room from the kitchen steps.

  Kate shook her head stubbornly. “No, I thank you. I will wait for Lord Whitlock.”

  “Oh, but he ate hours ago, ma’am.”

  Kate looked over at the girl in shock, her breath simply evaporating within her chest. “He did?”

  “Yes, milady.”

  Though she knew it impossible, Kate could swear she heard her heart crack at the words. He could not even eat with her. Not even in a stony silence or a formal politeness. He would not see her at all. “Then yes, I will eat now,” she managed. “But just a little.”

  As it turned out, it would be a very little that she would eat before she was overcome and had to leave the room, racing back up to the would-be comfort of her bedchamber. She closed the door behind her, and threw herself upon her bed, yet again surrendering to the waves of tears and heartache that were destined to be her companions for some time.

  Outside of her bedchamber, leaning against the wall beside her door, Derek listened to the broken cries of his wife, feeling as though his own heart were no longer beating. He shut his eyes as she tried to muffle them, wishing that he had the strength to go in and comfort her.

  She continued to cry, the frequency and depth of her sobs growing, and Derek could bear it no longer. He grabbed at the door knob only to find it locked. In his own agony, he rested his head against the door, grimacing. He couldn’t bear to knock, to beg for entrance when he could not even meet her for dinner.

  He cursed the folly of his pride. What had he gained by fighting with her? Only this growing ache in his heart, and the bleak expanse of his future. She had returned his barbs as expertly as she had ever done, and rather than spar her out of it, he had taken it, and each had felt like a knife in his heart. His Kate was a woman who would not be trampled, and he had attempted to trample her. And for what? To feel that he could win one fight with his wife, when he had lost so stunningly to his father? What sort of victory had he attained? Nothing but a hatred of himself and the sobs of his wife that tore at his soul.

  With the only semblance of strength left in him, he pushed away from her door and turned down the hall, away from the direction of his own room. He couldn’t sleep now, if he ever would.

  She would never forgive him.

  He would not blame her.

  For he loved her still, and always would.

  That stung worst of all.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The morning dawned cloudy and dismal, which suited Kate just as well. She rose slowly, mutely, forgoing any pride in appearance or manner. She donned her plainest gown, silently allowing Jemima, who was, for once, also silent, to button her up and assemble her hair in the plainest, simplest array possible. But she did refuse to wear it tightly back, as she had before. She was not Katherine any longer, and she would prove it to Derek.

  If she ever saw him again.

  Her lip quivered ever so slightly and she bit down on it hard. The words he had lashed upon her had been horrible, had wounded and frightened her, but nothing could ever sting like his use of her full name, the name he had only called her when forced to or when out of her hearing. He had called her Katherine, not Kate. Katherine. The name of the woman he hated.

  Could one day, a matter of hours, really change everything so completely? From being on the verge of confessing her love and adoration to suddenly having nothing but memories that felt more like dreams; it seemed impossible to comprehend, and yet it was. She might not even have a husband, if he carried through on his threats. Would he? Could he?

  She softly thanked Jemima and hesitantly made her way downstairs. Part of her longed for even the merest glimpse of him, just a reassurance that he was here, that he was well, and perhaps, to see if he might miss her too. Another part wanted to hide, refused to see him, wanted to sulk and mourn and become a pathetic shadow of herself, waiting for the misery to overpower her. Still another part rankled at the memory of the fight, was galled that Derek thought so little of her, didn’t want to see him at all, for the anger still burned. A last, smaller part felt nothing, was empty, completely numb.

  But what did it matter how the many parts of her felt? There was nothing for her to do but go on, attempt to put some semblance of her life back together.

  If only she knew how.

  Today was cold and dark, and the weather matched the feelings of her heart perfectly.

  As she attempted to eat breakfast, alone again, she was able to discern from Harville, who was careful to only leave her enough hints in his morning ramble so as to avoid being impertinent, that Derek had not left and had not requested that anything be packed or readied. He was working outside with the men again, toiling at the garden project he had started for her. Kate had nodded, murmured her thanks, and resumed her small meal, but was unsure if she were pleased by the information or not.

  Why was he here, if he could not stand her? Why continue on a project he had begun to please her if that were no longer an objective of his? Why exert such physical e
fforts for her when he hated doing so, and now had no reason to?

  She made an impulsive decision and left the breakfast room, walking rather hastily to the gallery upstairs, which provided an excellent view of the back garden. Since he would not face her, she was left with making her own opportunities to see him. She could not bear to see him face to face, not after the hurt she had caused. But neither could she forgo seeing him altogether, if he were here. She could not go back to pretending he was nothing.

  She propped herself in the window seat to one side of the room, hoping to remain out of sight, should he glance up. The work was progressing rather impressively, and it would not take long before all was complete. The gazebo was nearly fully constructed, and now only required painting. The shrubs had all been planted, the stone pathway begun, and off to one side, she could see the fountain, ready to be set in the ground. Everything was in order, and all were busily occupied.

  It didn’t take her long to find him. He was working the hardest out of any man she could see, digging at the ground where the stone path would go. He seemed obsessed with the work, never once looking around or becoming distracted. He did not converse with any, and there was not a hint of smile to be found in his countenance.

  In spite of everything, Kate felt the same pull at her heart when she saw him, and the ache within her grew. His shirt was quickly dampening, though the day was cooler than any they had seen for some time. One of the men tapped him on the back, and only then did his focus move from the ground before him. She saw him nod, then hand off his shovel and proceed over to the gazebo, where men were smoothing out the wood that would become the bench within, and a few were working at the saw on some large pieces for the top. He took over for an older man, who nodded at him gratefully.

  In tandem, he worked with the men, over and over again running the saw through the wood, his face a mask of tension. Even from her present position, she could see the muscles in his arms flexing and relaxing as he sawed, and she wished those strong arms would hold her again, would want to hold her again. But it seemed improbable at this point.