She could only nod, as her mouth was dry and her lungs seized like she’d been dunked beneath icy water.
Bea fluttered her lashes at Archie and waved him forward. “Mr. Arthur Grand!” she cried like he was about to be introduced to the queen, and Archie caught Marigold’s gaze over the housekeeper’s shoulder.
A lopsided smile, the same one that had sent her insides bubbling like champagne on that night that seemed a lifetime ago.
But now, uncertainty weighed her down, rooted her heeled boots to the floor.
“Shall I prepare a tea tray, milady?”
Christ, Bea wasstill here?“No, thank you,” she managed.
Bea sighed in relief. “Good thing. I’ve no idea what goes on a tea tray. Besides tea, I suppose, but then…” The rest of her musings were lost as the girl snapped the door shut behind her.
“May I?” he asked gruffly, gesturing towards the settee beneath the window overlooking the square, and Marigold gave a quick nod before sitting gingerly in a spindly chair opposite him. Were she able to pull a sofa into the hallway and lock the door between them, she would have.
So much for the brave woman she’d been that night at the hunting lodge.
Archie’s lips flattened. “We have a lot to say to each other, I suppose. I’ve been trying to think what to say first, but—”
“You lied t-t-t-to me.”
His eyes widened. So did hers. “I beg your pardon?” Condescension dripped from his words. “I lied to you? You’remarried!” He hissed the last word like it was something profane.
A lump settled in her throat and pressed on her larynx, nearly robbing her of speech. “You said you were a farmer.”
“A farmer?” He shook his head, then laughed, a low, humorless chuckle from deep in his chest. “Of all the things we said to each other that night, all the things wedidthat night, you’re worried about my profession?”
“You never asked me about b-b-being married.”
“Or being a mother.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and the lump broke apart into a million shards of shale, each one slicing at her insides as she swallowed it. “I should have said that first, b-b-because I am. So sorry. Everything got out of hand, and I…”
“You ran.” His tone lacked judgment, as though her cowardly flight from the party was a mere historical fact. Perhaps, to him, it was. “You didn’t want me to know about your husband, I take it?”
“I p-p-panicked.”
Something dark passed over his expression as he scrubbed his hand over his mouth. Despite remaining in his seat, Archie hadn’t stopped moving the entire time he’d been there. His fingerstapped on his knee, his feet shifting on the Aubusson rug below his boots. That wide mouth, those lips she’d loved kissing mere weeks ago, moved like he wanted to say something, but he checked himself every time.
“That night was a revelation,” she said when the silence became too heavy to carry. “You’d just met me and acted like I was the most fascinating woman in the world.”
His expression remained stoic, and her stomach lurched.
“I chose t-to forget what awaited me outside. I never p-planned on what happened.” She rolled her lips between her teeth. “My sister—”
He raised one brow. “Your sister was there? What other relations should I know about?”
“My sister is the c-c-countess,” she said, her cheeks heating. “Lily.”
“Wonderful!” He scoffed and shook his head. “Any more family members you’d like to include in this debacle? How about your parents? Some cousins?”
Her nostrils flared as her frustration shifted to hostility. She didn’t tell him everything that night, but if this was his true character, he hadn’t been honest, either. “I should have t-told you, b-b-but I hadn’t expected to see you again. I thought you’d never learn the t-truth. I’m sorry, Archie. Mr. Grant.”
His jaw clenched. “I wrote to your sister, everyone I could think of. Did you know I was looking for you? Did you come to my office today just to mock me, tospiteme?”
Her vision clouded as she jolted to her feet. “I would never sp-sp-sp—”
Marigold bit her lower lip hard enough to draw blood and shut her eyes. Her fingernails dug into the fleshy heel of her palms as she forced herself to breathe. She loathed the moments when her emotions overcame her and her stutter grew too powerful for her to control. Words, a conglomeration of consonants and vowels, syllables and sounds jammed at her tongue like logs in a dam, allowing nothing through until she brought herself away from the brink.
