“As you wish. But why punish my sister? Won’t that raise unnecessary questions?” Willow attempted to call on his logic.
“It’s a matter of principle.”
“You mean pride.”
“Call it what you wish, the outcome remains the same.”
Oh, it will not, Willow vowed. One way or another, she would change his mind. “Perhaps you can tell me why you wanted to marry in haste in the first place?”
“Perhaps you can tell me the whereabouts of your sister,” he countered.
Willow sighed. The man was determined to be difficult. Not that she could blame him; his pride had taken a blow.
“And just so we are clear,wife,” he said with an infuriating amount of authority, “I am not a man swayed by the tears of a woman, if you were thinking of using them on me.”
“No, I suppose you are not,” she said, sparing a glance at her sniffing mother-in-law. No indeed, he was not. The poor woman had swooned and the only emotion it had elicited from her son was annoyance. Credit, it was annoying, but nonetheless.
Willow studied her husband from beneath the rim of her lashes. Somewhere inside him, an honorable man resided, she was certain of it. Even if it was dim hope, she was determined to find and appeal tothatman.
Once again, she found her gaze dropping to his lips and then jerked them down to her hands. She had developed an unhealthy obsession with her husband’s mouth. It was that kiss. Merciful heaven, it had overpowered all of her senses.
She wondered if the dowager would swoon again if the duke kissed her now, right here. Or how would they both react if she kissed him? Willow pushed the tempting image from her mind. There was still a wedding breakfast and her family’s questions to get through. Not to mention, saving her sister from the duke’s plot.
Settling deeper into her seat, she shut her eyes, closing the curtain on his penetrating gaze. If he expected her to wilt under his scrutiny, to bow her head and capitulate, to lay down her arms . . .
She would not give an inch if he did not.
