She put on a simple white cotton nightgown. It was practical, high-necked, and entirely un-seductive. It didn't matter. Her mother had said it. If he leaves you be, simply go to sleep.
She sat on the edge of the massive four-poster bed. The house was silent. A heavy, tomb-like silence. She looked at the door that connected her suite to the Duke's. It was made of thick, dark wood.
It was closed. Clara let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. She was safe. She was alone. She was the Duchess of Windermere, and her life would be quiet, undisturbed, and entirely her own.
She pulled the covers back. Knock, knock. Clara froze. The sound came from the connecting door. It wasn't loud, but in the silence of the room, it sounded like thunder.
She stared at the wood, her heart suddenly hammering against her ribs. Knock. Clara. His voice was muffled through the heavy oak. Low, hesitant.
Clara stood up, her bare feet hitting the cold floorboards. She walked slowly toward the door, her pulse roaring in her ears. She reached out, her fingers trembling slightly, and turned the brass handle. The heavy oak door swung inward with a faint, metallic click. Theodore stood in the threshold.
He had discarded his formal coat and his cravat. He wore only a white linen shirt, unbuttoned at the collar, and dark trousers. The stark light of the single candle in his hand cast long, flickering shadows across the harsh angles of his face. He looked entirely different. Stripped of his aristocratic armor, he was just a man.
A very large, terrifyingly quiet man. Clara clutched the collar of her cotton nightgown. Her heart battered against her ribs like a trapped bird. "May I come in?" he asked.
His voice was a low, rough scrape in the quiet room. She swallowed the dry lump in her throat. "Yes." He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He set the candlestick on a nearby table, then turned to face her.
He did not move toward the bed. He did not move toward her. He simply stood there, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, looking at the floorboards between them. "My mother told me." Clara started, her voice sounding entirely too thin.
She cleared her throat and tried again. "My mother told me that if you didn't come to my room, I should just go to sleep." She said it would be a blessing. Theodore's jaw clenched. A muscle ticked beneath his skin.
"Your mother is a fool, but she was right to assume you would prefer a locked door." "I did not lock it." He looked up. The pale gray of his eyes caught the firelight, burning with a sudden, startling intensity. "Why?"
"Because you are my husband," Clara said, forcing the words out. She refused to tremble. She would not be a cowering victim. "And because we made a bargain, my father's debts are paid.
I am yours to use as you require to secure the line. I know what is expected of me." Theodore flinched. It was a minuscule movement, a sudden tightening of his shoulders, but Clara caught it. He took a step forward.
"Is that what you think this is? A transaction? You think I came in here to use you?" Clara held her ground, though her instinct screamed at her to step back. "I think you are a duke."
"Dukes require heirs. I am not stupid, Theodore. Do what you must. I will not fight you." The silence that followed was absolute.
Then, Theodore let out a breath that sounded like a ragged curse. He closed the distance between them in three long strides. Clara braced herself, shutting her eyes, waiting for the rough hands, the tearing of fabric, the crude, fumbling weight she had been taught to expect from men. Instead, she felt a sudden warmth radiating against her face. She opened her eyes.
Theodore was standing inches away, his hands hovering on either side of her jaw, not quite touching her. His chest rose and fell in harsh, uneven breaths. "Look at me," he whispered. Clara looked. "The rumors in London," he said, his voice dropping to a gravelly murmur, "they say I despise women."
"They say I prefer the company of men in dark, hidden rooms. They say I am cold, unnatural, and devoid of feeling. I know what they say. They are half right." He finally let his hands rest against her cheeks.
His palms were rough, calloused from riding, but his touch was impossibly gentle. "I am considered unnatural because I look at the men in my circle, men like your father, men who take mistresses, who treat their wives like breeding mares, who take whatever they want by force, and I feel nothing but violent disgust." Clara's breath hitched. "I let the rumors spread," Theodore confessed, his thumbs lightly tracing the line of her jaw. "It was the easiest way to keep society's vultures away from me."
"If they believed the rumors about me, the matchmaking mothers stopped throwing their daughters in my path. It gave me peace. It kept the world at a distance. But it was a lie." He stepped closer, his body radiating heat through the thin cotton of her gown.
"I do not despise women, Clara. I despised the women they tried to sell me. I despised the simpering, the falseness, the greed." He leaned down, his forehead resting lightly against hers. "And then I saw you,
standing in that corner, looking at the entire room as if you wanted to burn it to the ground." Clara's lips parted. A tiny gasp escaped her. "I am not going to use you," Theodore whispered, his lips brushing against hers with every word. "I am not going to take what I want and leave you crying into your pillow.