George had almost come to miss the old, obnoxious Frederick Challenger who would have cut her dead as well. The new one spoke to her with distant courtesy, but refused to look her in the eye as he did so. He made sure that her glass was full and that her plate held the choicest dainties on the table. Then he ate, head down, knife and fork clicking against china as rhythmically as a machine, until the meal was over.
He made the effort to hand her up into the carriage and make sure of her comfort. But he returned to silence on the ride to his home, staring out the carriage window at the passing scenery. If he expected her to be the one to carry the conversation for the rest of their lives, he was sorely mistaken. For all she cared, they would go to their graves without exchanging another word.
His town house in St James’s Square was fashionable enough, in a sterile sort of way. Though she’d thought her father’s servants to be exemplary, they did not hold a patch to the Challenger household staff. When given a tour by the housekeeper, she found not a speck of dust anywhere in the house and not a single fringe on the rug out of line. When she returned to the sitting room, the tray of cold meats laid out for tea had been cut wafer-thin and rolled into a display of rosettes and leaves that was almost too pretty to eat.
She stole a slice of ham from an edge, chewing. It was a shame she would not be here for long. If the house had belonged to any other man, she might have enjoyed being mistress of it.
Her moment of peace was destroyed by the appearance of her new husband, entering the room at his usual brisk, military pace. She sighed and made a show of dropping her bouquet on the table as she helped herself to another slice of meat. ‘Hello, Mr Challenger.’
‘Madam,’ he said with a sober nod, but added nothing more to hint at his plans for the future.
She abandoned her earlier plan to punish him with silence. There were things that needed to be settled. If he did not broach them, she must. ‘We are married now.’
He nodded.
‘And I thank you, very much, for freeing me from the risk of marriage to Sir Nash.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he said, walking to a sideboard to pour himself a glass of brandy.
‘But I think it is time to discuss my future.’ Apparently, she must remind him, for he seemed to be offering no information on his own.
‘Your future,’ he said, as if surprised that she would be interested in it.
‘What happens next?’ She’d have wondered the same thing if their marriage had been a normal one. But she doubted that she’d have had to ask it of him. He would simply have smiled and shown her everything she’d wanted to know.
But remembering the kiss in the church, perhaps he did not know either.
He gave her another deep look. Then he drained the glass, set it aside and stared down at the floor, clasping his hands behind his back, turned on his heel and began a slow circumnavigation of the room.
‘Will you be finding me rooms?’ she prompted. ‘Or will the choice be left to me?’ Or could she just go back to her father’s house in the country as she wished to and pretend that the Season had never happened?
The pacing stopped. ‘Rooms?’ He looked up and frowned. ‘Why the devil would I be doing that?’
‘The agreement was that we would live separately,’ she reminded him.
‘Metaphorically, we will,’ he agreed.
‘You mean to live separately under the same roof,’ she said, shaking her head in disbelief.
‘Of course.’ He looked back at her with the same incredulous expression she was giving him. ‘We agreed that we would not bother each other.’
‘You are bothering me right now,’ she said, gritting her teeth. ‘The only way to prevent annoyance is by living in separate residences.’
‘If you think that you can set up housekeeping for yourself less than a day after your wedding, you are even more feather-brained than I thought.’
‘It speaks,’ she said, clasping her hands together in feigned enthusiasm.
‘You know damn well I do,’ he growled.
‘I was beginning to doubt it,’ she said. ‘There were more words in that sentence than you have said in hours.’
‘Since you have decided to pay better attention than you did during the wedding ceremony, I will continue.’
She sat on the edge of her chair, folding her hands in her lap, like the good little schoolgirl he wanted, and gave him an artificial smile.
‘The object of this whole endeavour was to avoid scandal,’ he said in the patient tone one would use on an idiot. ‘You cannot simply marry me and disappear. We will continue to share a residence for as long as is necessary for the town to lose interest in us.’
‘Really,’ she said.
