Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 02] by The Duke Next Door Read Free Book Online

woodsy scent mixed just for him at half the strength other men seemed to find necessary.
    “May I offer my congratulations again, my lord? What an exciting day for us all.” The valet beamed at him. Hadn’t the man been present at the disastrous introductions this afternoon?
    Calder gazed at the gleaming shaving instruments and wondered if perhaps those were best kept far from his new bride’s hands. She was none too pleased with the situation—nor was he himself any too pleased with her—and it simply didn’t seem right to embark on … er, nuptials at this delicate moment in time.
    He cleared his throat. “Her ladyship—is not expecting me this evening.” Or was she? Would she coldly go through the motions now? After all, by making her vows she had agreed to precisely that. He would be within his right to barge into that scented bastion of femininity and demand, well, pretty much anything he wanted.

    Deirdre naked, golden hair streaming down over her full breasts, kneeling obediently at his feet —
    Which would be abhorrent, of course. No right-thinking man would ever force a woman, not even—or rather—especially not his own lady wife.
    She might like it.
    Calder gazed helplessly at the door to the adjoining chamber. He truly didn’t know. He’d married a stranger—again—and so far nothing was going quite as he’d planned.
    Again.
    Melinda, although apparently willing, had wept quietly when he’d consummated their union. He’d been gentle and thorough, so he knew he hadn’t truly hurt her. He’d thought it merely maidenly fear and silently cursed her mother for preparing her so ill. Although she never seemed to truly enjoy it, she’d never refused him, in fact—until the night she’d left him. Up until that moment, he’d had no idea that she despised him so. She’d seemed rather wan in the months after Meggie’s birth, but he’d chalked it up to womanly emotions and gone about his business.
    Then, facing him down in her silken boudoir with her color high and her fists clenched, she had spilled out her hatred and contempt in a bursting dam of bitterness and gleeful abandon. She was leaving with her lover, she’d told him, leaving to board the first ship that would carry them far from him and Brookhaven, which apparently she hated as much as she hated him.
    Then the lover had appeared from where he’d been secreted by Melinda’s faithful maid and the battle had ensued. Calder had awoken to find himself lying on the
cream-colored carpet with a lump on his skull—from a lamp wielded by Melinda herself, apparently—and had run from the room in pursuit of his beautiful, betraying wife.
    He’d not stepped foot in that room since. Had the staff ever managed to get his blood from the carpet? Or repaired the chipped mantel from when Melinda had flung a vase at his head and missed? The ugly scene wore the patina of time in his memory, not as clear or vivid as it ought to have been, perhaps.
    What rose more vividly in his mind now was the way that Deirdre, gloriously gowned from their wedding ceremony, had stood on the steps of Brook House and defied him openly, with anger snapping brightly in her sapphire eyes.
    Perhaps … perhaps he’d been right about Miss Deirdre Cantor after all. He was a formidable man, he knew. Most people scarcely dared speak to him, yet the lovely Deirdre had raised her chin and called him out, on his turf, in front of his own staff yet.
    He didn’t let the tug on his lips quite form a smile, but he gazed at the closed door with a bit more hope. She had looked magnificent in that moment, hadn’t she? Spirited and furious and arousing, if a man were to be honest with himself … .
    Without quite realizing it, he reached out to press the latch of the door. He was simply remembering her eyes, furious and a bit hurt, now that he thought about it. He could go to her now and—well, he certainly had nothing to apologize for. Still, perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to … to end the