He blinked, his rancor momentarily melting away. This woman confused him. Confounded him. “I thought we were naming Shakespeare’s plays. I most assuredly donothave a dog.”
She forked up another bite of chicken, closing her eyes as if in ecstasy. “My heavens, you have my gratitude for hiring Monsieur Talleyrand as chef. This is exquisite.”
He forced all unwanted lust aside, grinding his molars together and taking a deep breath.
“Perhaps you did not hear me, so I shall elucidate, my lady,” he said, trying again. “I do not have a dog.”
“Correction, Searle.” She gave him a benign smile that somehow served to spur his lust anew. “You do have a dog now, and his name is Julius Caesar.”
Perhaps he had married a Bedlamite. She shared blood with the Earl of Rayne, after all, and if anyone’s blood was tainted with madness, it was that sinister bastard. Regardless, he was hovering over his wife as if he were an uninvited guest, watching her eat dinner. He ought to sit in the presence of a lady, and he knew it, but somehow could not force himself to do so.
Meanwhile, there was a creature running wild in his study, shitting all over his carpet and lord knew what else. The creature had been obtained by her; he had no doubt. And she had named it the most ludicrous name in the history of canine-kind.
“I do not have a dog,” he corrected her grimly. “I have an infestation. A trespasser. An unwanted hairy, slavering beast who is ruining my study as we speak.”
“Dogs are great sources of comfort,” she said simply.
And all the heat within him turned to ice. Fiery ice. The need to obliterate and destroy, the hunger for retribution that had never been far from his mind, rose, strong and ravaging and voracious.
“We have been through this unwarranted and unwelcome subject before, my lady.” He slammed his palms down on the table with so much force the china upon it clinked and jumped. And then, he lowered his head until they were eye to eye. “I do not require comfort, madam.”
Damn her, she had not even flinched. She stared at him, her expression as placid as the lake at Westmore Manor, his country seat. Her white-blonde hair and effortless grace, coupled with her determination to remain unperturbed, made her seem all the more ethereal.
And he was all the more determined to break her.
“Yes,” she argued with him, her tone calm and measured. Almost mild. Certainly mellifluous. “You do, my lord.”
“Do not begin to imagine you have any inkling of what I need,” he growled, his hands fisted on the table.
Because what he needed had nothing to do with a canine interloper and everything to do with her. He wanted to pummel something. To smash and destroy. To shock her. Perhaps even to frighten her. What he wanted more than anything was to wreck, to ruin her until she was as blackened and dead on the inside as he was, like the remnants of a fire in the grate, nothing but ash.
“You are suffering from nightmares, my lord.” She raised a brow, then returned her attention to her plate, as if she had said everything she needed to say.
Yes, he suffered, as would any man who had endured what he had, at the mercy of an enemy that had proved incredibly merciless. He had been abused in more ways than he wished to ever acknowledge or relive. The indignities he had suffered still had the power to make him retch.
But that was neither here nor there.
How the devil could she sit there and be so calm when he was raging? The calmer she remained, the more irate he became. He would never, for as long as he suffered the indignity of walking the earth, understand the beautiful creature before him. Nor the power she had over him. The power to make him weak. To make him forget his every reason for making her his in the first place.
“I am suffering from nothing, and I do not want or need the dog. I demand you have it removed from my study.” He pounded his fists in punctuation.
“You are suffering from something, Searle.” She forked up another bite of chicken, chewing it as if she hadn’t a care. As if she were facing him over a dinner party rather than after having thrown down the gauntlet. “He does have a name, you know. Julius Caesar is yours, and I will not be requesting his removal.”
To perdition with her and this canine nonsense, and this Julius bloody Caesar which had shat itself in Morgan’s study. Which had cowered beneath his desk. Which had been removed by the clever and careful Huell, a man who may not always approve of Morgan, but who was blessed with the capacity to perform his duties effortlessly and without asking a single question.
“I am suffering from a wife who does not know her place,” he countered. “Come with me, and I shall show you where you belong.”
Her lips compressed. “I belong here, finishing my dinner. You, my lord, belong in your study, tending to Julius Caesar before he makes a complete muddle of your carpet. Though from what I understand, the precious little fellow already knows how to behave properly. Perhaps you terrified him and that is the reason for his lapse of propriety.”
Had she just referred to a mutt shitting on his study Aubusson as alapse of propriety? Yes, the minx damn well had.
Her continued poise stretched him to the brink. He rounded the elaborately carved table—a relic of his mother’s, and a table his father had subsequently refused to dine at—wanting no more barriers between them. No more table, no more linens, no more china and chicken fricassee. No more pretense.
She was being cool and aloof, and he did not like it, damn it. Not one whit. Her eyes widened, brows arched in surprise as he caught her elbows and lifted her from her chair with scarcely any effort. The chair in question toppled over behind her under the swiftness of his action.
“I do not want your mutt,” he informed her coldly.
“Julius Caesar is not my mutt,” she corrected him, unassailable as ever. “He is yours.”
