Heartless by Jaimey Grant Page B

soon as she entered her dressing room. She slowly unbuttoned her pelisse and carefully removed it, laying it across a chair back for Liza to take care of later. Then she removed her gloves and shoes, laying them neatly by the chair as well. She unwound the ribbon from her hair and shook her head slightly causing the dark brown tresses to bounce around her head and over her shoulders. Her head hurt and she needed no extra stress upon it.
    The duchess sat down before the mirror at her dressing table and stared at her reflection. She refused to think. She couldn’t think. If she thought about it now, she would cry and that she refused to do. She would not shed any tears over a man who was so… so…
    She tried to understand. He was a very disturbed man. He had been a duke since he was seven years old. He was placed in a position of responsibility at a very young age and further imposed upon by his family who sought to rule through him. He was unsure how to act around someone who showed that they cared. He was untrained in proper behavior. He felt unloved and unimportant. He had no reason to be polite. He was a duke.
    He was rude and unfeeling and without a shred of sensibility!
    Of all the things he had ever said to her, his words of moments ago had been the most hurtful. Leandra had been able to brush off all his other disparaging comments about her appearance, her actions, and her serenity, but he actually admitted that he did not like her.
    Choking back the tears stinging her eyes, she tried to swallow around the growing lump in her throat. But even the strongest woman will cry at some point in her life. And Leandra was not the strongest woman. She was just as sensitive as any other member of her sex even if she was sometimes better able to hide it.
    The girl in the mirror stared back at her with an expression of such sadness in her golden brown eyes that Leandra clapped a hand over her mouth to hold back a sob that refused to be stifled. Tears bubbled up in her eyes and spilled over, under the wire rims of her spectacles, down her cheeks, across her hand to land with a quiet plop on the dressing table. Several more followed the first and soon she was sobbing with her eyes tightly closed and her fists pressed against her lips.
    She didn’t realize Michaella had entered the room until that young lady knelt beside her chair and wrapped her arms around her murmuring nonsense in her ear. Leandra hugged her sister tightly and cried her heart out into her shoulder.
    When the sobs finally ceased, Michaella stood and after patting Leandra gently on the shoulder, said, “I will ring for Liza, dearest, and have her bring a pot of tea.”
    Leandra silently nodded, wiping her face with the lavender dampened square of muslin that her sister had handed her. She realized her hair was a mess and patted at it ineffectually for a moment before giving it up as a lost cause. Liza would have to brush it and re-style it. The door opened and she heard Michaella say something to Liza. The door closed again and Leandra sat still waiting for her sister to return to her.
    But it wasn’t Michaella who came to stand beside her chair. She looked down at glossy black boots connected to black pantaloons connected to a black waistcoat and an equally black jacket. She knew the shirt and cravat would be black along with the eyes and hair.
    “What do you want?” she whispered. “I would have thought you would be happy enough to avoid the company of one you so dislike.” Her voice sounded petulant, childish, and she bitterly cursed herself for revealing how his words had hurt her.
    Dragging another chair forward, the duke sat down and gave her a steady look. “Don’t whine, Merri, it ill becomes you.”
    “Get out.”
    “I will not. This is my house. I admit I should not have said what I did. But that does not mean I will tolerate being ordered around in my own house by my wife.”
    “Get out,” she repeated stubbornly.
    Derringer leaned forward