Married to the Marquess Read Online Free PDF Page A

a chair near her.
    “I did not ask you to sit down,” she forced through her clenched teeth, her hands fisting at her sides.
    “No, you didn’t, and it was terribly rude of you,” he scolded, propping his feet up on her mother’s tea table.
    Breathe, Katherine. Breathe . “Remove your feet from that table, sir.”
    “Why?” He looked down at his feet, then back up at her. “They seem quite at home here.”
    Keep breathing. Keep breathing. “This is not your home.”
    “No, thank heavens. My home, our home, I should say, as you live there too, is much nicer than this. And I can put my feet wherever I please without comment over there.”
    Katherine had to literally restrain herself from reaching out to strangle him. She doubted there was a rule that went a duchess does not strangle her husband , but she felt quite certain that the sentiment was implied in one or two of the others.
    “I say, Kate, are you quite well? You look ready to burst into flame.” He looked around, then back at her. “Do I need to scoot this uncomfortable chair back a bit? I’d rather not get ash on this ensemble. Duncan chose it for me with such care…”
    “Why,” Katherine said loudly, overriding him as her nails bit into the palms of her hands rather painfully, “are you here, Whitlock?
    He paused momentarily and gave her an amused grin. “You are repeating yourself, Kate.”
    “My name is Katherine.”
    He shrugged. “Katherine, Kate, it makes no difference. After all, what’s in a name? A chamber pot by any other name would still smell…”
    “Whitlock!” she screeched, her cheeks flaming further.
    “At any rate,” he continued, as if she had not said anything, “as I said before, I came because you asked me to come.” He cocked his head and looked at her with interest. “Although, now that I think of it, you didn’t ask at all, did you? You insisted upon my presence. That is a rather different matter. The tone of your writing was rather severe, Kate.”
    “I do not think my manner of writing has anything…” she started.
    “Oh, of course, it does,” he interrupted with a slice of his hand, as if he were actually cutting something of hers off. “If you insist upon something, it would seem as though I have no choice in the matter at all, which is quite silly as I always have a choice, seeing as how you married into the title that I was born to.”
    Her mouth dropped open in shock. She had done more for the title he was born to than he had ever done for it. “How dare you…”
    “But if you were to ask me to come, very nicely, very politely,” he continued, his eyes seeming to hold a certain flame of impudence to them that she very much would like to scratch out, “I might consider acquiescing. But as you have never asked me politely or nicely in the ten years we’ve been married…”
    “Five,” she bit out, inordinately pleased to be both interrupting him and correct in doing so.
    “What was that, Kate?” he asked, cupping his ear slightly.
    “It has been five years that we have been married, Whitlock, as you well know.”
    He shook his head. “Only five? Goodness me, it feels more like ten. Regardless, in all of the five years, you have never asked me. Only orders, only demands.” He shook his head. “It was quite remarkable that I accepted at all.”
    “Surely you knew I never meant for you to accept it.”
    He put a shocked hand to his chest and coughed in mock surprise. “What? My own wife does not want me to come down to London to see her? But she summoned me!” He stood and paced about as if he were confused. “And she didn’t mean it. Oh dear, oh dear, what shall I do?”
    “Leave now before anyone knows you have come?” She did not even try to hide the note of hope that rang through her words.
    He winced and shook his head. “Alas, my dear, the Earl of Beverton and his wife have already come down, and Mr. Gerrard, Mr. Bray, and Mr. Harris as well. I am afraid that they all know