Authors: Stella White
“Are you having fun?” the Duke
said
when she had piled up around ten books.
“Yes, yes!” Elizabeth beamed.
“I have never seen so many books.
Even if I lived a hundred
years,
I would never be able to read so many books!”
“I know,” the Duke said. “It is a travesty,
that people
must go without books when I have so many which I rarely read.”
“You have lived it, though, haven’t you?”
“I have lived through much which is present in novels, yes,” the Duke said. “But I have not experienced all there is to experience. Who has?”
Elizabeth nodded and was about to pick up the books when the Duke rushed over and picked them up for her. She led him to her bedroom, and he walked in behind her and placed the books on the desk. “May I sit?” the Duke said.
Elizabeth
nodded,
and the Duke sat on the chair; she sat on the bed. They looked at each other for a time in silence. Elizabeth was feeling as though she had known this man her whole life. Perhaps it was because she so rarely attended social functions, or perhaps it was God’s interjection, but she felt as though she were not getting to know a person for the first time, but reacquainting with an old friend. The Duke regarded her with his hard face. “I hope the room is to your liking,” he said.
“Very much so,” Elizabeth said. “It is a lovely room.”
“And the hospitality? It suits you well, I trust.”
Elizabeth assured him that it did.
The Duke stared down at his
hands
and then back up at Elizabeth. “I must confess, Elizabeth, I have not much experience in wooing a woman. Most of my life has been spent fighting and serving the King. When it comes to matters of the heart, I am afraid I am damaged.”
Elizabeth wanted to go to him then and hold him in her arms. But that would be crossing a line she was not sure she wanted to
cross
.
You have already kissed, you silly woman! What other line is there to cross!
But couldn’t go to him so soon after the proposal; it would send a signal. Instead, she sighed and said: “I
am damaged
, too. The prospects for my family were good when I was young. I was the only girl of four boys, the youngest of the family. Then two of my brothers were killed in the war. The other is abroad; we don’t know where. After their deaths, Father started to gamble. He gambled my birthright away before I was fifteen, and since then I have been drawn inward. Within I cannot feel the pain that I so often
feel without
. Within, I am safe. It makes it difficult to interact with people. I find myself being cold just to keep people away. I only feel like I can tell you think because you are as cold as me, if not
colder
. I only feel I can tell you think because you are the Duke of Ice.”
“Is that what they call me? The Duke of Ice?”
“Some call you that, yes,” Elizabeth said.
“It is a silly nickname.”
“It is,” Elizabeth agreed.
“If I am cold,” the Duke said, “it is because the world has made me cold. I have watched all of my closest friends die. I have killed more men than a man should ever kill. I have lived amongst enemies for two years and found most of their people to be kind, just, not unlike our
own
people
. I have been warped and ill-used by war. If I were not a Duke I would be a madman. As it is, people merely whisper of me in nicknames. I remember one day, I had been hiding in a barn. The farmer discovered me and made me leave. I did not blame him. If the army found me, they would punish him.
“So I ran. I
ran,
and I
ran,
and I ran. I couldn’t come
home
because the King was sending troops, and I am a loyal man. So I just kept running. Until one day I came to another barn. This one had two women hanging from it. It was awful. I never discovered why they had
been killed
or who was responsible for it. It was then that I decided it was better for a person not to feel anything at all.
It is easier.”
“It can be,” Elizabeth whispered. “It can be much, much easier.”
The Duke nodded. “You look
very beautiful
when you look into the distance like that. Like you’re in a dream.”
“Duke,” Elizabeth said.
“Harold.”
“Harold,” she went on. “Please, tell me the truth, why do you want to marry me? There is a connection between us – I cannot deny that – but there must be some other reason. A man in your position cannot afford to marry based upon emotion alone.”
The Duke rubbed his jaw and let out a long sigh. “There is a reason,” he said. “But it is no longer valid. If the reason were not
there,
I would still wish to marry you as soon as you would have me. But
fine
, I will give you the reason I threw the party and invited so many unmarried women. The King wishes for me to marry. It is making him look bad, apparently, to have a
renegade
around him in peacetime. He needs me to marry so that the rumors about me can cease.”
“I am merely a pawn!” Elizabeth cried. “I am a piece in your game of houses!”
Elizabeth felt as though she’d
been punched
in the chest. She had kissed this man – she had
kissed
this man, for Heaven’s sake – and now he was telling her he had lied to her face.
She
had dishonored herself with him. If anybody were to find out that she had kissed a man without
being married
to him, she would be ruined forever. “I was just one of many, was I, at the party? One of many that you thought you could marry!”
“That is not how it is,” Harold said, his voice never changing tone or inflection. “I needed a wife. I saw you. You were by far the most
interesting
woman at that party. I spent time talking to the
others,
and I was disappointed. Yes, it started in
a rather sordid
way, I will give you that. But we have had
a nice
time of it over these past two days, haven’t we? I
truly
believe we are getting to know each other.”
“I do not know you at all,” Elizabeth said. “You lied to me and you—kissed me!”
“I should not have kissed you,” Harold said. “I own that. It was wrong of me. But do not tell me that you did not enjoy the kiss. I know you did, and you know you did. We both enjoyed it. Is that wrong?”
“We are not married,” Elizabeth said. “Whether or not it is wrong makes no difference when the consensus is that it
is
wrong. I will
be ruined
if anybody ever discovers this!”
“Nobody ever will,” Harold said calmly. “And it will not matter if we marry.”
“Is this your ploy, to kiss me and then blackmail me into marriage?”
“Now you
are being
silly,” Harold said. “I am not blackmailing you. I would never do something like that.”
“How can you just sit there and talk with such a calm voice? Are you not excited? Are you not sorrowful?”
“I am patient,” Harold said slowly. “I am
patient,
and I am sorry. But I will not weep if that is what you wish. I wept my last tears a long time ago.”
Elizabeth breathed heavily and composed herself, summoning her inner-calm. “Leave me now, if you if would,” she said. “Please, I wish to spend this night alone.”
“Very well,” he said, rising. “I will see you on the morrow.”
Elizabeth waited
for the door
to close behind him and then threw herself onto the bed, feelings twisting through her like gnarled branches.
*****
Elizabeth woke in the middle of the night with a feeling of almost overwhelming dread. Like every
woman
, she had heard horror stories about men using them and then ruining them. To some men, she knew, using a woman was just a sport, something to
be done
and then laughed about afterwards. You didn’t need to take a woman’s feelings into consideration when you were
a certain
kind of mind. You merely did what you wanted and damned the consequences. Elizabeth had to hope that Harold was not a man like that. If he was, she was already ruined. She had already crossed a line.
Perhaps there is a land where a woman can kiss whomever she wants, but it is not this one.
She tried to reclaim sleep, but it wouldn’t come. She walked to the desk and lit a candle, and hunched over a French novel about a woman who
is stolen
from a small town and carried to Paris, where she learns how to become a proper lady. Only at the end was the small town French woman rumbled, when she failed to read a piece of Greek script. She was thrown aside by the man who had stolen her and was forced to return to her town, disgraced.
Elizabeth closed the book. The sun was rising. She fell into bed and closed her eyes. From pure exhaustion, she was able to sleep for a few hours.
She woke to a knocking at the door. The Duke wanted her to join him for breakfast. Part of Elizabeth wanted to scream:
I’m not coming to
breakfast
. In fact, I’m going home this very minute!
But the pull of the Duke was
strong
. Harold was a man who was extremely well-suited to her, despite his dishonesty. And as much as she hated to admit her weakness, she wanted to see him again.
She
wanted to look into his eyes and have him look back into hers. She wanted to feel his hand on her leg. God help her, she
was attracted
to this man.
She dressed in a simple gown and walked to the breakfast
room like
a woman walking to the gallows. She was doomed by her
own
attraction to him, she realized. But if she was doomed, so was he. And she knew one thing: if she had to, if it
really
came down to it, she could completely shut off her emotions and sever her ties with this man. Dishonor or no dishonor, Elizabeth could do it if she had to.
Harold looked anxious upon her entry. He nearly jumped out of his chair and rushed
around the table
to pull Elizabeth’s chair out for her. Elizabeth gratefully sat and waited
for breakfast
to
be served
. They ate a simple meal of bread and meat, and then the Duke leaned forward on his elbows and stared at Elizabeth. “I am sorry for my dishonesty,” he said. “Truly, I am.”
“If you are lying about this, what else are you
lying about
? That is what worries me the most. We have not known each other for very long. What secrets am I to discover after we have married?”
“You can ask me anything, and I will answer honestly. But the King’s direction is the only secret I have that pertains directly to you.”
“I will judge that,” Elizabeth said. “For example, have you been with a woman before?”
“Yes,” Harold said, looking down at the table.
“How many?”
“Six.”
“Six!”
“How is that possible?”
Harold shrugged. “I have travelled, Elizabeth. But they were always flings, over within a day and never thought of again. I want to marry you, to make you my wife, and to serve you well. That is the truth of it.”
She looked into his eyes and tried to gauge if he
was being
dishonest or not. As far as she could tell, his feelings were sincere, but how was one to know? For all she knew, he had used these
same exact
lines on the other six women. But there was the lust, as well, that was calling out even now, as she looked at him. How she wanted to touch him more, and have him touch her more. How she wanted to go further than a kiss
…
Stop it, she told herself. Stop thinking like this. It is not proper! You are a lady!
But thoughts of that kind were not so
easily
extinguished. “I would have some proof that you
really
wish to marry me,” she said slowly.
“How am I to prove it to you?”
Elizabeth shrugged. “I do not know. But that is that I require.”
“If I can prove that I am sincere, will you marry me?”
“Yes,” she said, far too quickly. She laughed at her
own
eagerness. “Yes,” she repeated. “If you can prove it.”
The Duke nodded and then rang the service bell. The freckle-faced girl Elizabeth had seen around the Castle walked in. “Katherine,” Harold said.
“
Yes
sir?”
“Have you heard the good news?”
“The good news, sir?”
“Yes!
You haven’t
heard? Elizabeth and I are getting married.”