I feel a little like a creeper, watching her while she doesn’t know, but I can’t help myself. And I can’t ignore the fact that when she saw me with Jessa she was so angry she went and got pissed—in the British and American meanings of the word. Katherine shouldn’t care what I do, and I shouldn’t care that she cares, but she does—and I do.
When we get home, I make sure Murdoch pulls around to the back of the property where no one will see me carrying my unconscious new wife inside while I’m in dress pants and no shirt.
Upstairs, I ask Deena to come and help Katherine out of her clothes while I take a quick shower and throw on a t-shirt and jeans. When I get back to Katherine’s room, Deena is just closing the door behind her.
"How is she?"
"Oh, she’s going to have the brown bottle flu, as my grandfather would have said. But she’ll be fine by tomorrow.”
I thank her before she makes her way downstairs, and then I stand in the hallway, oddly disquieted and unsure of what to do next. Deena has taken care of Katherine, I don’t need to bother her now. She’ll sleep it off, feel like hell for a few hours, and then be fine.
I don’t need to see her again.
Yet, I want to...badly.
“Bloody hell,” I mutter as I give in and slowly open the door to enter.
Inside the elaborate Duchess’s suite, my new wife looks young lying there in the big bed. Her hair is spread out on the pillow and she sleeps on her side, one hand tucked beneath her cheek. She looks almost angelic, yet I know she has plenty of the devil inside, as well. It makes for a distinctive package, one I’m finding more and more appealing.
I sit on the edge of the bed and carefully brush her hair back off her face. Her eyes flutter under the delicate lids and I hold my breath for a moment, but then she seems to slip back into whatever dream she might be having, a look of sweet mystery taking over her face as she smiles in her sleep.
I stand from the bed, still unable to stop watching her face, the curve of her cheek, the way her brows lift in perfect arches then dip again like angels’ wings.
I should leave, let her sleep off her afternoon of strong English ale. But instead, I carry an armchair over from the fireplace and place it next to the bed, where I sit down and wait for her to wake.
27
Kat
There is something pounding in my head and it’s not the bass line of a good dance track. It’s more...metallic...and sharp.
“Oh God,” I moan as I roll to my side and squeeze my head between both my hands.
“Here, drink this, it will help.”
I shriek when someone speaks next to me, and the noise makes my head pulse violently. Dear God, I think I’m going to toss my cookies.
I breathe through the waves of nausea until they subside, then cautiously open one eye. There sits the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. My heart does a little flutter that’s much more pleasant than the flutters in my stomach, but as my brain starts to come online, I realize the vision of all things magnificent, staring at me with concern, is none other than my husband—the Duke of Douches.
“What are you doing?” I grit out as I struggle to sit up. I realize I’m dressed in my biggest t-shirt, and not much else. I try to pull the covers up because my nips are on display through the thin fabric. His eyes drop to my chest for the briefest moment, and my cheeks heat.
“Here,” he repeats, “have a drink. You need to start rehydrating.”
I stare at the glass of water in his hand, but finally give in and take it, sipping carefully as he reaches over and plumps the pillow behind my back.
“There. Are you going to be ok?”
His expression is one of genuine concern, and I find it hard to reconcile with the man who was hitting on two women within minutes of each other earlier in the day.
“As if you care,” I snap.
He watches me patiently. “Katherine. Do you remember what happened?”
“Of course I do. You kissed me, you kissed your ex, I went to a pub...” Then it all comes back in a blinding flash. The drinking, the floor, the puke. “Oh my God, I puked on you!” I gasp. I cover my face in horror. Even though he’s a jerk, that’s a whole new level of humiliation.
Then, the most remarkable thing happens. The stick up his butt, holier than thou, Duke of Douches laughs. Really laughs. As if he found being puked on totally entertaining.
“You’re laughing? I ruined that dress shirt. It probably cost more than my parents’ first house. You can’t possibly think that was funny.”
He chuckles a moment more. “While smelling like vomit wasn’t my favorite part of the day, you were rather…engaging.”
Great. I glare.
“Katherine,” he says quietly. “I’m very sorry about what you think you saw.”
“Oh no, I know what I saw. And anyway...” my cheeks heat, “it doesn’t matter because we’re not married for real. I knew I shouldn’t let you push me into anything beyond business, and I see I was right. So, from here on out, it’s business only. You stay on your side of the room and I’ll stay on mine.” I gesture at the door that leads to the library and then his bedroom beyond.
He captures my hand as I’m waving it about. “You don’t know what you saw, and you don’t know me, or you’d realize I’d never kiss two women in the same day—not even in the same week.”
“Then what was that?” I ask, and my voice sounds almost...tender. I need to fix that.
“It was Jessa hoping to reignite something that died a long time ago.”
“And what was it with me?” I hold my breath, waiting for his answer, my heart beating like a tiny hamster running on a wheel.
He watches me, still holding my hand, heat crawling up my arm as the center of me begins to soften, like caramel melting in the hot sun.
“I think we need...” he starts to say, but then the door to the room flies open, and Samuel says, “My Grace, I apologize, but we have a situation, and you must come immediately.”
28
Winston
My foot has hardly left the bottom stair in the foyer when I hear the crash of something undoubtedly valuable being broken.
The doors to the library rattle as I reach them, and I turn to look at Samuel.
"Your cousins, My Grace," he says by way of explanation. I sigh and open the door just as David and Andy roll across the floor in front of me. David has his hands around Andy’s throat, his hair a tousled mess across his brow as he tries to strangle his brother. Andy’s knee is jerking toward David’s family jewels but he can’t get the right angle, and his face is transitioning from red to purple.
"You’ll never have it!" David snarls as he shakes Andy. Andy finally gets the knee to the target and David makes a strange retching sound as he rolls off his brother and curls up in a ball. "You bloody bastard," he wheezes.
Andy is gasping for breath and I walk over, looking down at the two of them. They’ve always been idiots, so I can’t say I’m shocked, but I thought they’d left the fist fights behind with adolescence.
"Are you quite done?" I ask.
David points at me and tries to say something, but Andy slaps a hand over his mouth. Then David bites him, and Andy rears up, ready to start fighting again. I grab Andy’s hand in mid-punch and haul him to his feet. I shove him toward the wall and point at him menacingly. "Don’t bloody move."
Then, I turn to his older brother. "Get up," I command. As he’s climbing to his feet and brushing off his clothes, I take stock of the room. They’ve managed to break a vase given to my great grandmother by George VI as well as my grandfather’s humidor. Bloody wankers.
I stroll behind the desk and lean with my fingertips on the top. "Mind telling me what the hell that was all about?"
David simply scowls, but Andy is all too happy to open his trap.
"He thinks he’s going to take the company and the estate when grandfather promised me I’d be given the property in Surrey, as well as a third of the company."
"He would have never made a promise like that," David snaps, "and you damn well know it. The Surrey property belongs with the title, it always has, but when I have controlling interest of the company, you’ll be lucky if I let you keep a position at the farthest farm in Yorkshire.”
"Yet," I interject, my voice as clear and cold as I can make it, "I now own and control all of those things, which is why I can not, for the life of me, understand why the two of you are in here smashing up the place."
"I will have the company as soon as the court sees what I’ve prepared about your supposed marriage," David sneers.
I step out from behind the desk and David shuffles back, his eyes widening. "Let me explain something to you." I look at both of my good for nothing cousins. "Grandfather loved nothing more than pitting all of us against one another. You know as well as I do that, as the oldest male in the family, both the title and the company are rightfully mine. I spent years under that man’s thumb to earn the privilege of taking on all this responsibility." I wave my hand around the room. "You think it looks like money and power, but you know, if you’re being honest, it’s a hell of a headache. I’m now responsible for parliamentary responsibilities, the family coffers, the well-being of hundreds of employees, the royal duties and engagements, the taxes, the politics, the squabbles. You really think that’s such a windfall?"
David glares at me. "Oh, you’ll try to make it sound like it’s a burden, but you love it, every bit."
I shake my head. "I really don’t, but I’ve spent my life preparing for it. What have you done? Did Grandfather take you to meetings with him every year when he had the annual company reviews? Did you have the diplomacy lessons at Eton? Did you spend two weeks every summer with Great Aunt Miranda tutoring you in royal protocol?"
He stares at me.
"I didn’t think so. You didn’t even know all those things occurred, did you? Well, they did. I was trained to do this from birth, and it’s part of my obligations. Grandfather was a manipulative old bastard until the very end, but he never intended for anyone but me to take over the title and the company."
Andy looks uncomfortable. "That does seem like a lot of work," he mutters. "I only wanted to keep managing the farms, I don’t want all the rest of that trouble."
"Shut. Up," David grinds out.
I turn to Andy. "You can continue managing the farms, of course. From everything I’ve seen, you do a fine job, and we can certainly review your salary. If Grandfather wasn’t keeping up with comparable salaries in the industry, we’ll adjust accordingly."
He grins. "Good by me." Slapping David on the back, he moves toward the door. "I’ll leave you to it then. Glad we could work all this out. See you at the service tomorrow, Win." And with that, he’s gone.
I turn to David, who is seething. Raising an eyebrow, I fold my arms and simply lean back against the desk—my desk—and wait.
He stares back, his eyes narrowed, jaw clenching and unclenching. “You’re a bloody fool,” he finally snarls.
“Why? Because I’m accepting the inheritance that’s actually mine?” I move around the desk and sit in the big office chair, leaning back casually.
“Because you’ve tied yourself to a woman you don’t love and I’d guess barely know, as well as a corporation you know next to nothing about.”
“I grew up in that business, of course I know it,” I snap back. “And I know my wife, as well. Just because you don’t believe my marriage is real doesn’t make it so. You have nothing to go on, no proof of anything. You’re grasping at straws because your envy and your greed have taken over what little sense you once had.”
“I deserve that company,” he hisses as he leans forward over the top of the desk. His nostrils are flared, his eyes are wild. “Me.” He jabs a finger at his own chest. “You don’t care about it, you only want the money for your precious American hockey team. You’ll let the title and the company rot while you and your Vegas bride run through the family fortune.”
I blink, wondering when and why David got this bitter.
“Why do you hate me so much?” I ask, genuinely curious.
He blinks at me for a moment, then seems to process what I’ve asked.
“I hate what you represent,” he answers quietly. “You don’t respect the family, the traditions of being the Duke, the things that have made us stronger than almost any other aristocratic family in the country. All you want is to do things new ways, your ways, alternative ways. You’ll tear down everything Grandfather built and leave us all with nothing.”
That’s when I realize why he’s saying this. He thinks all my businesses over the years were failures, when they were actually successful, but because Grandfather blocked my access to any other funds, they all topped out, unable to grow without fresh capital.
“David,” I say gently, “I’m not going to bankrupt the family. My businesses have all been solvent—more than solvent—it was Grandfather who kept them from succeeding. He hated that I wanted to do something—anything—that wasn’t under his thumb. You don’t need to worry about the company.”
He scoffs. “Says the man who found some call girl on the streets of Chicago and married her to gain an inheritance.”
Part of me cringes at the depiction, but the bigger part flares to anger at the insult to Kat.
“That’s enough,” I growl. “You will not speak about the Duchess of Surrey that way.”
David gets a gleam in his eye. “Ah, so that’s how it is,” he murmurs. “As you wish, then.”
I squint, wondering what Machiavellian twist I’ve missed.
“I’ll see you at the services,” he says, before turning smartly on his heel and striding from the room.
All I can think is that something important just happened and I don’t know what it is, but I do know it relates to Kat, and that’s not a good thing. Suddenly, I’m afraid for her and I need to see her, make sure she’s okay after all the drama earlier. I leave the room almost at a jog, whooshing by Samuel and taking the stairs two at a time.
I reach the door to the Duchess’s suite and twist the handle, my heart racing for no reason other than I feel like Kat is under a threat of some sort, even though I can’t name it. The latch gives way, and I swing the door open, stepping through expecting to find her asleep, but the bed is empty, and as my gaze scans the room searching, I’m met with the sight of Katherine, stark naked, as she stands toweling her hair dry in the doorway of the bathroom. My mouth goes dry, and all the blood rushes to my groin. Then, she looks up into my eyes.
29
Kat
It takes me a split second to realize that I’m standing naked...in front of my husband. Doesn’t sound like a problem, except this is hardly a normal marriage, and he’s never seen me even close to naked. At my ankles, Wallis is purring and rubbing against me. But even his adorableness can’t distract me from the electricity of this moment.
I squeak in surprise, and then there’s a second of hesitation because I’m not sure whether to yell “get out” or run back into the bathroom, but before I can make those kinds of choices, I get a glimpse of the look in his eyes, and holy hell—it’s like staring into a fire. I feel my entire body flush, and I gasp, overwhelmed by the electricity sizzling in the air all around me.
“Pardon me,” he says, his voice rough with want. He turns around—not too quickly, though—putting his back to me. “I wanted to check on you,” he continues, his shoulders stiff with tension. “See if you needed anything else for your stomach—saltines or soda or medicine of some sort.”
I’ve managed to get the towel wrapped around me by this point, and I go to the big dresser and slide open a drawer to pull out some underwear and a bra.
“Um, yeah, I’m feeling better. Still a little buzzed, honestly.” I laugh softly. “Those pints packed a punch.”
He scratches the back of his head. “Yes, the dark stuff takes some getting used to. It’s not Miller Lite.”
I can’t help but chuckle. Even the words Mi
ller Lite in his stuffy accent are funny. I step into my undies, the silk sliding over my skin making me wonder what his hands would feel like in the same places. Bad Kat. Bad.
Refocusing on covering myself, I drop the towel and put on a bra that matches the undies—deep eggplant, trimmed in black lace. “There, that’s better,” I mumble to myself.
Only, Win thinks I meant he can turn around, so he does, and I do as well, and there we are, facing one another, me in purple lingerie, him with that look in his eyes again. And for some reason, I feel more naked now than I did two minutes ago. Some part of my brain realizes that I’m wearing as much as you would be if you were at a beach, but for some reason it feels so very different.
“I’m sorry...” he begins, but I’m trying to play this off, so I walk across the room to the closet where I dig around to find a new outfit, my former one being...well...vomitous. And yes, that absolutely IS a word.
“No worries,” I say as I lean into the built-in wardrobe-type deal, sliding hangers along the rod without even seeing what I’m touching. “This is more decent than a lot of girls wear to go shopping on Michigan Avenue in the summertime,” I joke.
“Kat?” His voice is right behind me now and I jump as I turn around.
“Oh.” I swallow. Hard. “Hey. You’re um...here. Like, right here.”
He reaches out and puts his finger over my lips. I blink at him as things south of the border roar to life in a way I’d never dreamed they could. I now know where the term “smokin’” came from. From Winston. Right here, right now, looking at me like he’s about to devour me whole.
“We need to talk about earlier,” he says, his voice low and intimate. My freakin’ heart pounds harder, and other parts of me spring to life, screaming yes, please, let’s talk about that, or even better, let’s do it again!
The Duke: A Standalone Royal Billionaire Novel Page 9