Although her lady’s maid had already arrived to help her prepare for the evening, Catriona had sent her away. She had harbored a suspicion her husband’s attempts to keep her at bay were not at an end. Their time alone in the carriage had left him shaken.
It had left her hopeful. Hopeful she may be capable of scaling his walls. Of battering down his defenses. Or forcing him to let her in.
Instead, he had withdrawn at once.
She should have known.
Catriona left the room, gathering her courage and her pride both, and made her way to the public rooms. Alessandro was seated, a tankard of ale before him, a pretty, young serving wench not far from his side. Catriona knew a pang of jealousy at the sight. Of course, he would have ladies fawning over him wherever he went. He was not just handsome but compelling in a way few men possessed.
But she was his wife, even if he was determined to treat her as if she were nothing more than a duty, he had not been able to escape. She reached the table, giving the serving wench a pointed stare.
“Husband,” she greeted brightly. “I have been awaiting you.”
The girl took her cue to leave, fading into the background in a pretense of seeing to the needs of another customer. Catriona turned her attention to Alessandro. He exuded a different energy this evening. He was cagey and raw, his eyes heavy-lidded and dark as they assessed her.
His sullen lips were drawn into a frown. “Cristo, what are you doing wandering about alone, Catriona? Do you not know any better? Something could have happened to you.”
She seated herself even though he had not bothered to stand or invite her to join him. “Perhaps you should have concerned yourself with such matters before you abandoned me.”
He clenched his jaw. “I did not abandon you.”
“I have been alone since this morning,” she countered.
“I wished for solitude,” he said, unrepentant.
He could have his solitude when he returned to Spain.
She stared him down, equally unmoved. “You ought not to have married me, in that case.”
“Return to the chamber and get some rest.” His tone was curt, his brooding expression even more forbidding than it had been upon his initial sight of her. “Tomorrow is another long day of travel before we reach Marchmont.”
“No.”
She had allowed him to hide from her for long enough.
“Lady Rayne.” His voice was low, a warning growl.
She was not afraid of him. Rather, it seemed clear to her he was afraid of her, which was why he had devoted the day to avoiding her and wallowing in ale.
“Lord Rayne,” she returned, unflinching. “Will you order me an ale, or shall I have to procure one myself?”
His lip curled. “You are not sitting in a common room swilling ale.”
“Not yet. If you will not oblige me, I will seek out your friend. Or perhaps an obliging fellow.”
But when she made to stand, his hand closed over her wrist. “Stay.”
Catriona sent him an inquiring glance. “Have you changed your mind, husband?”
The urge to find her way beneath his façade, to rattle him, was strong.
“If you are half as intelligent as I believe you to be,querida, you will return from whence you came,” he warned as firm in his resolve as she was in hers.
“Ah, but I am foolish,” she dared to tell him, her tone conspiratorial, “for I married a man who is determined to leave me. You may say I traded one banishment for another, of a sort. Hardly the action of a wise woman. Nor was it wise to ruin myself and cause my exile in the first place. And it is most certainly vastly unwise to find my heart softening for a man who has told me in no uncertain terms he cannot feel the same.”
There.
She had revealed to him what she had only come to grasp herself in the hours alone, silent, in a carriage rocking toward an uncertain destination.
