“You’re blushing,” he observed.
She sputtered. “You’reinsufferable.”
“I’m merely clarifying.”
He was in front of her now, and her back hit the edge of the library shelves. She looked up at him with wide eyes, green with storm and defiance and something very near panic which he found endlessly charming.
“Just to be perfectly clear,” he said and leaned in.
His mouth grazed the edge of her jaw. It was barely a touch. Featherlight. But she froze.
Then, his breath warm against her ear, he whispered. “I didn’t choose to marry you because I wanted heirs.”
She made a small noise, which was something between a squeak and a gasp, and stepped sideways with surprising speed, putting a good three feet of distance between them.
“You are acad,” she hissed, pointing an accusatory finger at him though the color in her cheeks betrayed any hope of real menace.
“And you’re running away.”
“Because you are scandalous, and I will not stand for it!”
He raised a brow.
She turned, flustered beyond speech now, and practically ran from the library. He stood there for a moment, the silence thick around him, and then reached up to touch his lips. They still held the faint, sweet warmth of her skin.
Robert exhaled through his nose and let a rare smirk curl at the corner of his mouth.
He had known this before, of course. From the moment she called him arrogant with that glint in her eyes, from the way she insulted his manners without flinching, from the way she’d looked at him tonight with half fear, half curiosity.
But now it was a certainty. His wife was going to be trouble.
And God help him, he didn’t mind it one bit.
Chapter Twelve
He agreed,she thought bitterly.He agreed to let me live my own life. That was what I wanted. Wasn’t it?
Then why did it feel like some invisible thread had snapped between them, leaving a hollow space behind?
Evelyn was still burning with indignation and something far more dangerous that she refused to name as she rounded the corner at too sharp a pace and collided hard with another figure.
Evelyn recoiled instantly. Her heart slammed against her ribs.
And then she sawher.
Matilda.
Her sister.
The sister who had stolen a man, a future, a world Evelyn had once allowed herself to believe in. For a moment, Evelyn could only stare.
Matilda looked thinner than she remembered. Also, tired. But her eyes were wide and soft, just as they used to be when they were girls, whispering secrets in bed long after the candles were snuffed out.
“Evelyn,” Matilda breathed, reaching for her hand. “Please, just a moment. Let me explain. I never meant for things to happen the way they did?—”
Evelyn stepped back so quickly she nearly tripped on her own hem.
“No.” Her voice came out low and sharp, the kind of tone she had trained herself to master, the kind that masked everything trembling underneath.
