Bo smiled in spite of her best intentions regarding him. While she had counted him a friend, his treatment of Spencer following their wedding had been cruel and unjust. She had not forgotten, even if her husband had seemed to forget he had a wife the moment his soles had connected with the cobbled drive of Boswell House.
“Forgive me, Mother,” Harry said without a hint of contrition, “but I shouldn’t think one vulgar word outweighs the sins of an entire dinner marked by your insults directed at Bo.”
“Lady Boadicea is your brother’s wife,” the dowager informed him coolly, “a fact which you seem to forget given your penchant for referring to her in such a familiar fashion.”
“She is my sister now.” He stared his mother down, over the tureen still teeming with leftover sole. “Just as she is your daughter. This is her home, Mother.”
Twin splotches of color mottled the dowager’s cheekbones, and here at least, Bo could admit that Spencer resembled his mother. Those high, angular blades were one and the same.
“Yes,” the dowager said, her tone infused with false cheer, turning back to Bo with yet another manufactured smile. “It is your home now. Welcome back, Daughter. If you do not care for the sole, perhaps you will find the next course more to your liking.”
Harry met Bo’s gaze, a glint of understanding passing between them. Gratitude trickled through her that she would have at least one ally within these imposing walls. The servants were called back in with another course, and when theSaumon au Vin Blancarrived with its accompanying boat of shrimp sauce, the decision that had been reverberating through her mind finally was made.
She was leaving in the morning for London, and Spencer and his townhouse could go rot. Earlier, she had sifted through her correspondence and had been heartened to see a lengthy note awaiting from her dear friend. Clara had demanded more information upon return from her honeymoon—apparently, she had garnered all the information she required from her stepmama, who also happened to be Cleo’s sister-in-law. And Clara was desperate for news. She wrote that she hoped she would see Bo soon, and that she and her husband were in residence at their townhome. The Duke and Duchess of Bainbridge would always be welcome.
Bo intended to take her friend up on that offer.
Sans the Duke of Bainbridge, of course. She would give him the space he required, and perhaps, in so doing, she would find a way to muddle through the emotions clouding her judgment. Maybe she would find a way to stop loving him.
Spencer woke before dawn in a strange bed.
He jolted awake, trapped in that odd purgatory between sleep and wakefulness, his mind sluggish, dredging up the nightmares that had claimed his slumber. A fine sheen of sweat coated his skin, locks of his hair plastered to his forehead. This time, the nightmare had been different.
This time, he had been alone in his study, the pistol in his hand. A voice, sinuous and cloying, had woven its way into his consciousness.You are the devil. It is all your fault. End this.And he had taken the pistol, held it to his temple, finger poised on the trigger. He had been about to obey the voice, to send himself into oblivion where he belonged, but something else had stayed him.
A presence. A scent.
Jasmine.Boadicea.
But it had been a nightmare, all of it, and now he was here, lying supine alone in a bed, coverlet pooled round his waist, chill morning air restoring his lucidity to him. As he shook the memories of the horrible dream from his brain, he scanned his surroundings. In the semi-darkness of pre-dawn glow through the window dressings, he thought for a moment that he was back at Ridgeley Castle. That he could roll over and nuzzle his face into the silken cloud of his wife’s hair, and that his hands would find the heavy weights of her breasts filling them, the erotic points of her hungry nipples stubbing into his palms.
But this was not Ridgeley Castle, and the cavernous reaches of the chamber told him that. He was at Boswell Manor, and he had spent the majority of the day before alternately busying himself with an upcoming sale of some of his horses and avoiding the one woman he longed for most.
He stared into the ceiling, finding the familiar molding and vaulting, the plasterwork shaped in the coat of arms, the ornamental roses and leaves, the details he had looked upon so many times that they had all but ceased to exist. How odd that a bed he had slept in for so many years should feel strange after only a week. That he should wake here, in his home, and feel bereft.
But he did, and he did not like to think of the reason for any of those troubling matters. Because he knew the reason. The reason was too tall for a fashionable lady, with a mass of auburn curls, snapping blue eyes, the lushest lips he’d ever claimed. The reason smelled of jasmine and lily of the valley and had a marked tendency to trespass. She enjoyed reading bawdy books and liked acting them out even better. The reason was bold and desirable and brave and unflinching and the most beautiful, seductive woman he had ever bloody well seen.
And he was terrified. So terrified that his mouth went dry even now, as he lay on his back and stared into the ceiling he had seen without truly seeing five thousand times before. How was it possible that he just realized, for the first time, that the plasterwork contained acanthus leaves and acorns? And how was it that everything he saw anew seemed to somehow be caused by her?
Distancing himself from her had driven him yesterday. The necessity had been beneath his skin, an itch, a desperation that he couldn’t shake. Part self-preservation, the old demons returning to claim him. Because he had longed to go to her every moment he had been away. His inner beast had yearned for her, setting him aflame, and she was all he could think about, all he wanted, his confounded need for her consuming him.
But he could not weaken now. He would not, any more than he already had during their honeymoon. Spencer should never have allowed his defenses to fall so easily. He should never have allowed her to wedge herself so firmly within his heart that he could not remove her no matter how hard he tried.
He had been cool and aloof.
He had kept her at arm’s length, not kissing or touching or otherwise making love to her.
He had remained absent all day, leaving her to face dinner with his mother and brother on her own. Yes, he was a coward. An abject and pathetic piece of lowly pig shite. When he had found his chamber last night, there had been no light beneath her door, and he had forced himself to maintain his distance, for it was the only way he could keep himself from falling in love with her any more than he already had.
Expelling a rush of air, he stared at the plaster some more, and Christ if he wasn’t still seeing new patterns and decorations as a subtle sound reached his ears. Movement. Footsteps. Doors closing. Shuffling. Muted voices. The music of it all rained together to create a cohesive sound that he recognized from his youth, from every time his parents had planned a journey and left he and Harry behind.
The sounds could only mean one thing.
His wife was leaving.
He swallowed, gazing into the intricate arched ceiling overhead as if it could answer his queries. Pain and loss slammed into him. He could not let her go. He had to go to her, to fall on his knees, apologize for his mercurial mood.
But what good would that do? Explanations would not make him whole. Revealing the ugliness of his inner scars to her would not free him. He would still be the man whose wife had killed herself before him. He would still be wracked by nightmares. He would still be unable to love her, to have children with her, to enjoy a true marriage with her the way she deserved.
