“It is all that I have ever done,” he snapped. “Why do you think I have returned?”
“I would have hoped that—it does not matter.”
She left him, and Spencer wondered if she wanted him to follow after her, but he was not going to do that. Frankly, he preferred not having to talk to her about the matter at all, for no good would ever come of it.
He had to find a way to leave again. He had to get away, and he had sworn that it would be soon, but with all that was happening, that would be far more difficult than expected.
And, he had to admit, a far greater part of that problem was down to the attraction he felt toward the woman he had abandoned.
CHAPTER 7
“Ido not understand him.”
Evelina and Theodora exchanged glances, then looked back at her. Anna, meanwhile, stirred her tea and tried to make sense of everything.
It was the day after her last conversation with Spencer, and the day after she had felt that same attraction to him again. She did not want to feel it. She wanted to be furious with him, but that was not possible. No matter how hard she tried. “I do not think that he understands himself,” Evelina considered. “The only one of us that would have even the slightest idea is Maria, but she is busy with her children today, so you only have the two of us for guidance.”
“And I am grateful for you both. I feel as though we are making progress, but then there are moments when he treats me as though I am inadequate. I have no idea where I stand in my marriage or even in my home.”
“The two of you have been apart for a long time,” Theodora explained. “You are bound to have these difficulties at first. Whether he likes it or not, you have been in charge of the household, and he has had no part in it. He is a man, though, which means that he will inevitably want that power back.”
“And he is welcome to it. I would have liked for him to be charged with it all from the start. Then again, we may now lose everything, and the fault will be his entirely. If it were not for him, we would be in far better standing.”
Anna took a tentative sip of her tea, and it burned her slightly. She did not care, however, and rather enjoyed the sensation as she drank. It reminded her of the brandy she found in her home shortly after Spencer had left, and the relief it brought her.
“And then there is the matter of the mistress,” Evelina grimaced. “My husband had several of those, but I was pleased about that. It meant that he had no interest in me.”
“And yet, he claims not to have one, and in spite of everything, I believe him.”
Her friends were shocked at that, and Anna was no better herself. She never would have expected to take him at his word as she had, but he had spoken with such conviction that she could not accept that he might have been dishonest.
If he was so believable as he lied through his teeth, she would only be terrified of him.
“Then where has he been?” Evelina asked.
“I do not know, and he will not tell me. Truthfully, I have no idea what he wants, nor why he married me, nor how long he will stay this time, or what he expects from me.”
“Your silence, I assume.”
“I tend to agree with you there,” she sighed. “He has made so many suggestions that I have become more proper, and I do not understand it. He is the one who has not fulfilled his duty to me as a husband. Why does he expect perfection from me?”
“Because,” Theodora said in a matter-of-fact tone, “when you inevitably fail, for perfection is impossible, he can feel better about his own shortcomings.”
“You do not like him, do you?”
“I cannot say, for I have not met him. He certainly did not seem too willing to meet us.”
Anna considered the way Spencer thought of them—bluestocking spinsters that hated men and loved causing scandal—and bit back a smile. Her friends were not precisely like that, but to say that they were always proper ladies was not completely truthful either.
“He will be more amenable to it now, I believe,” she assured her. “He is not the most sociable man, I have noticed. He does have one friend, though. The Duke of Hawthorne.”
Evelina almost dropped the teapot as she poured herself a cup.
“He does not consider that man a friend, surely?”
“He does indeed. I am as surprised as you, given his need for rules, but it appears that we are wrong about him.”
“I am never wrong about a man,” Evelina said proudly. “It is an instinct of mine, as you know.”
