Lady Adventuress 01 - His Wayward Duchess Read Online Free PDF Page B

really needed an aide in his campaign against the decay of Pontridge Abbey and so he had gone out and found himself a wife – a pleasingly domestic sort of girl who would keep his house ordered and never intrude in his heart. That was the only way it could be. Anything else was inconceivable.
    He just had to keep on reminding himself of this fact. What was it about her? He never would have looked twice at her, surely, if he hadn’t been taken by that inexplicable whim at the park. And now, of all things, he had acquired a wife. It would have been far less hazardous to acquire a leopard.
    Strathavon took a drink of wine uneasily, trying to concentrate on rich, oaky flavour instead of her face. He could read her expressions so much better than she knew and it made him wonder about things that were best left undisturbed.
    She was watching him expectantly.
    “Well, my dear, I should think you may pass the day however you please.”
    The enigmatic duke looked directly at her then, but Holly was certain that he did not really see her – had never really seen her.
    Sh e was a ghost in her own marriage. She nodded slowly.
    “Yes, precisely as I ple ase. Thank you for clarifying, Your Grace. I think I had better go and lie down a while after all, if you will excuse me.”
    Strathavon rose as a footman stepped forward to help her move her chair, but she waved him away.
    “Shall I ring for your maid?”
    “No, no, I wish you wouldn’t bother. I shall be right as rain in no time at all.”
    She left the room so that he would not be able to glimpse the pain etched across her face.
    It was not his fault, after all, that she loved him and he did not love her. It was not fair to make him disconcerted with all this show of emotion.
    There were few things in life as cruel as feeling such abiding affection for one who had not the least intention of returning it.
    Why was it that she still felt compelled to try, over and over, to make him confide in her? To show some warmth of sentiment? A part of her had known the truth all along, really, but that only made it worse.
    It was as tho ugh he was wholly closed off from her, unreachable, and the thought of him so near yet so completely foreign caused a sharp ache in her heart. She yearned for him to take her hand, and to love her: the impossibility of this dream near stopped her breath.
    *
    Holly avoided Strathavon all of the next day, but at supper, when she could avoid him no longer, she determined that she would fill the silences herself. If he wanted to conjure memories, then so would she.
    If there was one thing she was good at, it was filling silence with words. S he told him of her family, and of growing up with all her siblings, because she didn’t know what else there was for them to discuss.
    He listened and nodded , and even inserted a comment here and there. But the duke possessed a distressingly cold exactitude, Holly found, and a knowing demeanour which made her feel as if he knew just how unremarkable and hopelessly in love she was.
    Was he aware of her feelings? Even she was not aware of the full spectrum of pain and despair which she had encountered in the last day.
    Failing entirely to make any sort of connection with her new husband and left to her own devices in the miserably shabby house, Holly resigned herself to occupying her time with domestic matters.
    And how much time she suddenly had!
    Time that would otherwise have been spent laughing with Rose, helping Arabella with her French, looking at Cassandra’s new saplings, or ignoring John being tiresome. And to think of all the times she had bitterly complained to her mama that she couldn’t get a moment to herself at Millforte.
    But now there was just the house to keep her occupied, and it would indubitably take a lot of time to fix it up. At least she knew that her strengths definitely lay in that direction, though she did not make for much of a grand lady.
    She put on a comfortable old dress with a high neckline