She gritted her teeth. “That is all you have to say for yourself?”
“Need I say more? I feel confident my opinion of Lady Sandhurst is quite warranted.”
The arrogance of the man. She’d had enough. To hell with the breakfast in his lap. Before she even knew what she was about, she slapped him. The satisfying sound of her palm connecting with his face echoed in the silence.
He rubbed his jaw, watching her like a hunter intent upon his prey. The mild disinterest vanished, replaced by something indefinably dangerous. “Do you not think you’re being a tad dramatic, my dear?”
“You allowed your…” She paused and closed her eyes, unable to say the word “mistress” aloud. Ladybird she could say in a fit of pique. Mistress was something far more intimate, as it implied a favored status. A permanent relationship to rival the marriage itself, in some instances. Her mother had told her never to acknowledge such a thing existed, and for the entirety of her marriage to Pembroke she had not. She had not while whispers inevitably made their way to her. She had pretended to be unaware, had pretended not to care. But this was the outside of enough.
“Signora Rosignoli,” he supplied.
Her eyes flew open, her entire body shaking with roiling emotion. “You dare to speak her name?”
Pembroke raised an imperious brow. “What would you have me call her?”
She had tolerated his abandonment. She had quietly accepted gossip sheets and Maggie’s letters about her husband carrying on with widows and lonely wives, had pretended each new name hadn’t scored another wound in her heart. But this, she was quite certain, was beyond the pale. He had openly lived with a courtesan, opera singer or no, and had done so for all the world to know. He had touched the woman, kissed her, allowed her to dwell in the family house as recently as a fortnight ago. Last night, he had come to Victoria claiming he wanted to atone for his sins. It would have been laughable if the notion of thisSignora Rosignoliin his bed didn’t make her ill. And still he dared to view it all with a carelessness that made her long to slap him once more.
She took a deep breath, her corset nipping at her sides. “Never again speak of her to me.”
He shrugged. “It will be as you wish.”
A physical ache took up residence in her breast. She didn’t know whether to cry or rage. She wished she had never consented to marry him. She wished to God she had become a spinster and gone back to the city she loved and so dearly missed. At least her life had not been a mockery in New York, with no one to hurt her.
Her vision grew dark around the edges as if she were about to swoon. She needed to escape. How had she been naïve enough to allow him to kiss her last night? How weak she’d been. Worse, she had enjoyed his mouth, his touch.
“This marriage has become insupportable to me,” she said on a rush.
He calmly turned back to the table as though she hadn’t said a word. “I recommend you collect yourself and enjoy breakfast with me.”
Did he truly think there would be no consequences for his actions? That she would sit and eat kippers and toast as if nothing untoward had occurred? As if she had not just discovered the depths of his depravity and duplicity? True, she was at his mercy as his wife. He could carry on as he wished with every opera singer and unscrupulous lady he liked, and he could keep her in the country, and he could use all of her money to buy dresses and baubles for his conquests. She had no rights. Indeed, she had less rights than an unmarried female.
But that did not mean she would calmly lie down for slaughter. “I don’t care what you recommend, Pembroke. I may be subject to your whims, but know that you disgust me.”
He smiled but it did little to relieve the harsh planes of his brooding expression. “I believe I’ve already disproved your claim.”
She gasped, shocked that even he would stoop to such a level. “How dare you?”
Pembroke gave another shrug. “Why bother with deceit?”
“I daresay deceit is all you’ve been bothering yourself with, my lord.”
“You go too far,” he warned, standing at last.
He towered over her diminutive stature, but she didn’t care. “It is you who has gone too far. Was it not cruel enough to discard me as if I were no better than an outmoded waistcoat? Now you come to me in lies and try to make love to me as if you actually had a care for me when all along it was a farce. Did you laugh to yourself, thinking you made me the fool once again? Tell me, did you crow with all your friends at how you’d hie off to the country and make me your dupe again? Did you even think about me when you were living with your paramour?”
She didn’t need an answer to her questions for she already knew. Of course he had not thought of her. Very likely, he never thought of her at all. She envisioned a gloriously beautiful woman with dark hair and a voluptuous figure lounging about in his bed and revulsion swept over her. Of course his mistress would be ravishing. She wondered if he kissed and caressed Signora Rosignoli the way he had touched her last night.
Pembroke closed the distance between them with one angry stride and caught her against him, trapping her in his arms. “Stop this nonsense, Victoria. I’ll not hear another word of it.”
She was in no mood to be subdued. She struck out at his chest with her fists, wanting to pummel him. “Then you shall have to sew my mouth shut, you rotten cad.”
“Or I shall have to kiss your mouth shut.”
His mouth was sudden and hard, almost bruising over hers. Angry as she was, her body still responded to him, and she loathed it and him both. His chest was muscled and tempting. He didn’t live an idle life, not from the feel of things. But that just reminded her how little she knew of him. He’d been living apart from her for nearly half a year. His tongue swept over the seam of her lips then, seeking to plunder and render her mindless.
But Victoria was determined not to give in to him this time. She pushed him away. “Lovemaking is not a cure, Pembroke.”
He gave her a wry grin. “Perhaps it is a symptom then.”
