“Then I’m sorry for that,” he said, his voice unexpectedly gentle. The texture of it reminded her of crushed velvet, and she briefly thought it odd that a man with such a ruined face could have such a deep and lovely voice.
“Don’t worry,” she said, prodding at the excellent pastry. “In London, I shall pretend to be excellently educated and to have never stepped foot in a kitchen.”
“Necessity is nothing to be ashamed of.”
“And yet I should not confess to it.” She shrugged at his piercing gaze. “That is the nature of pride. A duchess should never admit to possessing certain skills. And now that I am a duchess, I must keep the secret.”
He inclined his head. “The nature of pride is a cruel one.”
“True.” She cocked her head at him. “Tell me something, and with no fear of hurting my feelings. Would you have married if you hadn’t your sister to think of?”
To her surprise, he took some time to consider her question, pouring himself another glass of wine. His hand shook very slightly, and she wondered at it. How much damage had the fire done? She had a sudden, terrible urge to see all the scarring, to map the damage across his body and know for certain.
What would it achieve? Nothing. But he was the Beast of Somerset and she his bride, and she wished to know what sort of monster she had married.
If he was a monster at all.
“No,” he said at last. “If things had been—different—I may have married already, but things are not different. And so you were the sacrificial lamb placed on my altar.”
“That you paid good money for.” She dabbed her mouth with the napkin. “I’ve heard Mrs. Dove-Lyon is not cheap.”
“No,” he acknowledged with a grim smile. “She is not.”
“I suspect,” she said, laying her cards on the table, “she ensured my father’s debt belonged to her—and perhaps even engineered it so she might have this opportunity.”
“Entirely possible. There are plenty of gentlemen searching for wives in unconventional ways.”
“And I was a pawn she could wield at her command.”
The duke looked at her for another long minute as she finished her plate. Then, without saying another word, he replaced his mask and rang the bell, summoning the servants to clear the table. He asked for ale, and she requested nothing; there was very little she wanted to drink from this place.
Once everyone had left, his gaze returned to her. “You may retire now, if you wish,” he said. “I will stay here awhile.”
“Has enough time elapsed?”
“You look tired,” was his only reply. “And I find that when I drink, it is better I do so alone.”
“Why? Do you turn cruel? My father has never laid a hand on me, but he has thrown things at my head when he’s in the throes of inebriation.”
“Have they ever hit?”
“I’m remarkably good at ducking,” she told him.
“Well, you will not have to be with me, no matter the occasion.”
“No matter how I try you?”
The left corner of his mouth curved in a crooked smile that struck her as oddly charming. “Even then.”
“Well, I am tired,” she said. “Thank you for dinner, Your Gr—Hugh.”
“Goodnight, Chris.”
Once her lady’s maid, Baxter, arrived, Christiana left the parlor and took the corridor across to the room that had been assigned to her, noting as she did the door in the wall that would connect her, presumably, to the duke’s room.
Baxter set up a truckle bed, and Christiana lay back against the pillows, wondering if she would hear the duke come upstairs before she fell asleep.
She did not.