The Inconvenient Duchess

is,’ he assured her. ‘The job is not complete without the ring. And in London, I sought something that might remind me of you. Perhaps you will not like it. I will let you chooseanother, if you wish.’ He pulled the tiny signet from the box, kissed it and reached for her trembling hand. ‘In the chapel, I promised you everything. My house, my home, my land, and myself and this ring is a symbol of that.’
    She stared down at it and said nothing.
    ‘And, it will not slip off your finger if you relax enough to stop clenching your fists in my presence.’
    She still stared at the ring, but now a tear gathered at the corner of her eye and trickled down her nose. Dear God, he had made a misstep. ‘There were diamonds,’ he said quickly. ‘Pearls, perhaps. Or an opal. No. No opals. That would not be a lucky stone for a wedding ring, for they are said to steal the soul of the wearer.’
    Her face tipped up towards him as the tear slipped the rest of the way off her chin and was quickly followed by another. ‘It is the most perfect thing I have ever seen.’ She was still crying, but her face lit with the first true smile he had seen from her. ‘I will never remove it. Thank you.’ Her hand caressed the ring as she spoke and she laid it against her cheek before bringing it down to stare at it again.
    ‘And now, madam, if you wish to rest for the afternoon, I have work I must do.’
    She looked around as if noticing for the first time that she occupied the chair in his study. ‘Yes. I…I think I will go to my rooms. Thank you,’ she said again and drifted out of the door.
    He thought of the mountains of satin and ribbon that had brought such a storm down on him yesterday and compared it with the simple ring on her finger and the smile on her face. And he shrugged. A most curious woman, his new wife.

Chapter Eighteen
    A n afternoon’s rest had done wonders for her mood. Of course, discovering that St John had lied in nearly every conversation they’d had might have done something to ease her worries. Her husband had no mistress. And hated the silk in the dining room as well. He taken time to show her, before the footman removed it, the place where, as a boy, he’d made charcoal alterations to the anatomy of one of the shepherdesses and expressed some relief that the evidence would be permanently removed by the redecorating.
    She touched a curl. And Marcus liked her hair. She glanced down at the ring on her finger and smiled again. He hadn’t abandoned her at all, but had been thinking of her while in London. And he’d remembered the ring. It was a sentimental choice for a man she’d thought cared only for obedience and appearance. And he’d kissed it as he had the ring he put on her finger the day they were married.
    She hid a blush. Perhaps it was foolish and courting disappointment to spin fancies about her husband’s motives. They were all so practical and yet they seemed those of alover. She remembered the feel of his breath against her face and felt a delicious shudder run through her body. Perhaps he had come to see more than anger when he looked at her, and forget the frustration of the trap she’d caught him i
    And she meant to keep it that way. The talk she was imagining, where she admitted how she had come to him, must wait for a very long time. There was no point in marching across the fragile bridge they were building between them, to give him information that he did not want to hear.
    She walked out into the hall, went over to the banister and stared up at the cobweb hanging from the ceiling. The spider had lived here much longer than she had, and the fact irked her. And would live there longer still. It might take months before the staff finished the bedrooms and worked their way to the top of the house.
    If she left it for the staff, she thought. The spot was almost reachable from the third floor hallway, if she leaned over the banister a bit. She walked up the stairs, forming a plan of attack. It would be dangerous to lean too far, of course. But she could gauge the distance. Perhaps, with a rag at the end of a broom, she could swipe at the thing and knock it down. Or send a footman.
    She laid a hand on the rail and leaned forward. No, not quite. There was a low bench on the opposite wall. She pushed it across and stepped up. The height was right, but she would need the broom to do the job, and someone to steady her as she stood.
    Suddenly an arm gripped her waist and dragged her back