The Devil is The Duke

Emeera could not speak for minutes. The silence seemed to go on for the longest time, then she coughed nervously. “I am so sorry. I had no idea you went through that.” He laughed; a cranky and bitter laugh.

“I would have forgiven women. I would have said it was just my mother who whored herself or lied like the devil but other women proved to me that mama was the rule, not the exception. I went back to the University after confronting her lies. She broke down and admitted that she had deceived me. My father was not the perfect husband but he never cheated and he never lied. He was not like the other noble men we know including my friends’ fathers who cheated and sired illegitimate children in every borough. The late duke was a honourable man and my mother spat on that because of her own insatiable lust. She was dead to me the day I realized she lied against my father. He was a loving husband who did everything to please a horrible woman. When she finally passed, I was more relieved than sad. I was so relieved I almost cried. People who saw me thought I was grieving not knowing I was just relieved.”

“I didn’t know you experienced something that vile,” Emeera said. But the Duke didn’t reply to that.© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

“The ladies who lunch talked about her for days…”

“The ladies who what?”

“You are best friends with Lady Athelstan’s daughter yet you don’t know the ladies who lunch? They are all over Savoy. Noble ladies who meet for tea and lunch almost everyday? All they do is gossip, complain about the their maids and exchange matrimonial advice?”

“I’ve met them but I didn’t know they had a name,” Emeera replied.

“I have always despised those women. My mother’s escapades were soon known and these women spread it at balls, over lunches and everywhere else. The rumours started to seep out so matter how I tried to contain it. And oh I tried! In order to save the family name and pride. Lady Athelstan’s mother was commander in chief of the gossips. She invited people for lunch every week and my mother was their main dish. Then my mother died and fortunately, she took the rumours to her grave and it was buried for good. Our lives regained a bit of normalcy. Luckily, it didn’t affect my sister’s chances at marriage. But I hated my mother and hated those women, yet I made the mistake of marrying from that class. My wife fit in so well, I should have known.”

“How did you meet her? Your wife, I mean.”

“I went for a horse racing with Stevenson and Alexander. It was there I saw the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She came from the right background. Everything was set. I wedded her few months later and she moved into my mother’s suite, but not before redecorating. You see, it had a cream wallpaper before she moved in. She took off the wallpapers because she favoured paint. I was fine with the change. The less memories we had left of my mother, the better for me. She overhauled the rooms and I supported everything. The marriage made me believe in love again. I was a busy man and traveled a lot for business. I won’t go into etails of how I found out about my wife and my manager but when I did, I vowed never to remarry if death took her. As providence would have it, I did not have to wait long for it to happen. Like my mother, she cried and swore to change and lied. I almost believed she was raped but that was a lie too. Then the low self-esteem set in. I felt I was not enough. Maybe she had cheated because I could not satisfy her like a man should. I had thought my wife would feel lucky to be my wife. Coming to the realization that title, money, status and even my sexual performance was not enough to keep my own wife was a blow I may never forget. All through the duration of my sham of a marriage, I never cheated. To think she sought it out with my paid man, just like the Lady Savoy before her was enough to drive me over the edge. But it also consoled me. Maybe I was not the problem. Maybe women generally were just ungrateful, selfish, insatiable bitches. I could not divorce her and give the ladies who lunch something to talk about for years. It would have revived my mother’s gossip, for sure. Like the saying goes ‘death is cheaper than divorce’. She is gone now and I am certainly grateful she bore me no bastards. I do not even want children. I do not want my son to experience the cruelty of life like my father and I had experienced.”

Emeera sprang up from the couch, the realization of what he was saying hitting her hard. “Did you murder your wife?” She asked. The duke smiled sadly and shook his head.

“Even if I say no, would you believe me?” He asked. Emeera backed away.

“What do you want from me?”

“To remain my house manager. To finally understand my aversion to women and why I am certain I shall never entangle myself in holy… Yes, holy matrimony with your kind. To understand why honesty is non-negotiable in my relationship with anyone. You broke that trust.”

“I am very sorry. It will never happen again.”

He got up, Emeera backed away some more. He walked towards her. “You can sleep in this room tonight. We set out at dawn for the manor.” With that, he walked out of the bedroom and gently closed the door behind him. It all made sense to Emeera then. His uncommitted sexual relationships with different women. His disdain for women and matrimony. He had made it known even to his lovers he would never marry them which was far more honest than most men Emeera knew. Men who swore they were in love when all they wanted was to have someone in their bed for the night.

She could not find fault with a rake who admitted to the women he was only seeking temporary pleasures. He did not string them along with vague promises of a future castle and ladyship titles. And now, he had been honest with her too. He had not even asked her to keep his confidence but she silently swore she would never breathe a word of it aloud in her life. She wish she could embrace him and whisper to him that he was going to be fine. That it would not hurt so bad one day, but, though he was vulnerable that night, he was not a child and she knew that too well. That night, she prayed for the man and slept.