Instead of retreating as he had encouraged her to do, she moved forward. The strong smell of spirits assailed her. Had he spent the entirety of his day drinking, then? She studied him with new eyes, noting he did not appear soused now.
“It matters to me,” she said quietly. “When you failed to appear at dinner, I was concerned.”
He closed his eyes briefly, a faint wince crossing his features. “Forgive me. I was otherwise detained. You would be wise to accustom yourself to the notion I will not always be available to you. I have many matters that require my attention.”
She did not appreciate his condescension. “I understand you are a busy man with estates to run. However, I do not think it unfair of me to ask you to send a note home if you find yourself delayed. I kept dinner waiting for over an hour, and Monsieur Talleyrand was quite displeased.”
“Monsieur Talleyrand can go to the devil. He gets handsome recompense for the indignity of keeping his dinner warm.”
Mama had warned her that most gentlemen kept mistresses. That it was to be expected and ignored. A matter of course. Was that what had happened? Had his interest so easily strayed? A man like the Marquess of Searle—handsome, tall, dashing, a national hero—had to have any number of ladies falling at his feet. Particularly ladies of a certain ilk.
“If you have grown bored of me, you need only say so, my lord,” she told him quietly, a surge of humiliation making her throat threaten to close.
She had never felt more foolish than she did now, her heart all but pinned to her sleeve for him to savage while he stood before her in the evidence of the dissolution in which he had wallowed. Had the last week meant nothing to him? Why did he face her now with the cold, stark countenance of a stranger?
“There is no place for maudlin sentiment in our union, madam.” He remained aloof as ever.
Why should she be surprised? He had warned her, had he not?
This is all I need from you, he had told her so crudely, referring to their lovemaking.
It is not your duty to concern yourself with me. Your sole duty is to bear my children and refrain from cuckolding or embarrassing me publicly.
Yes, she was the worst sort of fool, because she had entered into a marriage with a man who had never claimed a tender feeling toward her. A man who was hard and dangerous, haunted by the horrors of his past. A man who had abandoned her on the day of their wedding. Who was cool and remote whenever he was not setting her aflame with his mouth and his touch. Who had married her out of necessity and duty rather than out of need or want.
And she had spent the last sennight falling in love with that man.
“Forgive me,” she told him stiffly, the need to flee rising within her lest she further embarrass herself before him. “I was foolish enough to think you may have had a care for my feelings as your wife. I will not be so foolish again. Good evening, my lord. I leave you to your valet.”
Attempting a curtsy that ended in a searing ache of pain in her leg, she turned and made great haste in her exit.
“My lady,” he called after her.
But she closed and latched the door at her back. For the first time, the ache in her heart eclipsed the ache in her limb.
*
He had muddledthings badly.
Morgan woke the next morning to a throbbing head, a dry mouth, and the rampant high tide of guilt washing over him. He dressed with the aid of his valet, Carr, who had been considerate enough to bring him a vile concoction he swore would cure Morgan’s maladies. He had gagged the bitter potion down, but noted no lessening in his headache when he reached the breakfast table and discovered his wife was absent.
When he inquired after his marchioness with Huell, his butler informed him that her ladyship had requested a tray and her correspondence taken to her chamber as she was feeling ill. An illness he was the cause of, no doubt. Perhaps she could not bear to see him after he had been such an ass last night.
Grimly, he settled in to his customary plate of sausages, coffee, hothouse fruit, and eggs.The Timeswas laid out for his perusal. The food smelled as delicious as always. His stomach had begun to feel—at bloody last—as if he had not just spent the last week tossing about on the ocean in a small, unseaworthy vessel. Never again would he attempt to numb himself with a bottle of Duncan Kirkwood’s smuggled whisky. The devil’s own elixir, that rot.
Indeed, all was as it should be. The morning sunlight shone in the mullioned windows with a brightness that should have instilled him with cheer rather than dread. But all he could see was the empty table setting where his wife should be seated. All he could think about was the naked expression of hurt on her lovely face when he had all but sent her running from his chamber the night before.
She had done nothing to earn his scorn, and he knew it. His beautiful wife was everything he had told her she was—good and sweet and innocent. She deserved far better than to be his plaything, the dangled bait of his revenge, nothing more than his leverage against her brother.
He had lashed out at himself first, then his old friend Whitley, and then Leonie herself. And he had done so in an effort to maintain the distance he needed between the two of them. For so long, he had lived on nothing but determination and the desire to exact vengeance. For too long, it was true, for they alone had sustained him through the darkest nights of his captivity. He did not know what manner of man he was, stripped of those twin motivations.
He was terrified of discovering it.
Terrified of losing the will to treat the Earl of Rayne to the pain and suffering he so richly deserved because Morgan had developed a weakness for his own wife. But something else burned within him, brighter and hotter than that terror, overwhelming it. Overwhelming him.
And the longer he sat here, a steaming plate laden with food he had no desire to eat before him, Leonie’s empty chair mocking him, the more demanding it became, roaring into an insistent life of its own. Until it could no longer be ignored.
He stood with such sudden force, his chair upended and toppled backward. Huell, ever the mask of polite indifference, allowed a brief flicker of alarm to cross his countenance before stifling the rare slip.
