"I Married You to Save My Name, Not to Know You" The Duke Said—She Left His Bed Before Dawn

He said it with the same tone he used to discuss estate business. Crispin Voss, Duke of Fenwick, had been nothing if not honest. He had married Maren Calloway to satisfy the terms of his father's will and restore what two years of poor management had cost the family name. He had told her so. On their wedding night, in the candlelit quiet of his bedchamber, he had made it plain — this was a contract, not a courtship. He did not expect her to misunderstand. He had not expected her to agree. When he woke, her side of the bed was cold. Her things had been moved to the adjoining room before the household had risen. By the time he came down to breakfast she was already seated, already eating, already perfectly, impeccably composed — and she looked at him the way one looks at an acquaintance one is pleased enough to see and has no particular need of. She attended every function. She managed the household with quiet authority. She was charming to his guests, gracious to his mother, and entirely, completely, unreachably herself. He had told her not to expect to be known. She had simply taken him at his word. It took him the better part of a year to understand what he had done. It took him considerably longer to find the words to say so. He knocked on her door on a Tuesday evening in November. She answered before he had finished.