Even so, though she did her best to remain stoic, she could not deny the effect his words had upon her. They were akin to a dagger in the heart. For every forward step she thought she had taken with him, she found herself forced back three.
She was saved from responding by the return of the serving wench.
Catriona held her tongue until the girl had gone, throwing longing looks toward Alessandro and swaying her hips as she went. The dreadful female. She envisioned casting the entire content of her tankard in the other woman’s direction. Oh, how glorious it would be to soak her enemy in the bitter-scented brew which had been grudgingly placed before her.
“I have always been honest with you,” Alessandro added before tipping back his head and quaffing more of his ale.
The sudden craving for the scent of his skin hit her. Unwanted. Powerful. How she longed for this man, even more so after this morning. More so after their carriage ride. She felt more for him than she ever had another man, including Shrewsbury.
“You have been honest with me in some regards,” she told him, though hardly all.
Not that she would compare the two men. Alessandro and Shrewsbury were nothing alike. One had upended her world, the other had righted it. One had been a tiny spark on dry kindling. The other had been ravaging, unquenchable flames. One had made her feel safe, and the other made her feel shockingly vulnerable.
But alive, so veryalive.
“I have been honest with you in all regards,querida,” he returned. “You merely do not wish to hear the bitter truth.La vida es fea, mi esposa.Life is ugly.”
Catriona would prove him wrong. She was more convinced than ever that she could. That she must.
She shook her head, disturbed by his succinct view of the world, for it was not so clear and concise, nor so dark and bleak as he would have it. “Life is night and day. It is summer and winter, warmth and ice, blossoming flowers and frozen ground. Life is spring and fall, new beginnings, and withered deaths. It is pain and pleasure. But you are wrong to think it ugly, Alessandro. The disparities of life are where its beauty hides.”
He said nothing, and she could not be certain if it was for the best or for the worst that he maintained his silence. She felt, all at once, as if she had said too much. Revealed too much. And yet, she also felt as if she had not said enough.
Catriona busied herself by taking a tentative sip of her ale. Bitterness coated her tongue. Why had she imagined it would be sweet and delicious, like an elixir of the gods?
In truth, the stuff was awful. It required all the self-control she possessed to keep from spitting it out.
“You do not enjoy your ale,querida?” her husband asked, and for the first time that evening—nay, for the first time that day—there was laughter in his voice.
She liked the laughter, even if it was at her expense, for she reasoned he was a man who deserved levity. Who had earned it. Who did not exercise it nearly enough.
She also liked her pride. Too much, in fact. Which was why she raised her own tankard to her lips for another sip. This time, she held her breath as she swallowed the swill down.
Catriona settled the drinking vessel upon the battered table with a thud. Some of it sloshed over the brim. “I do not just enjoy it. I adore it.”
“Indeed?”
Was it her imagination, or had her husband’s lips twitched?
“I can see why it is called the nectar of the gods,” she lied.
He raised an inky brow. “Has it ever been called that? I confess, I do not recall.”
Perhaps it had not.
“Oh, yes,” she insisted. “It has.”
She held her breath and took another sip. Then another. The taste on her tongue when she exhaled was worse than dreadful. It was despicable.
“Ambrosía,” he said.
Catriona took two more healthy draughts. “Precisely.” The urge to belch clamored up her throat, and she pressed the back of her hand over her mouth.
How ungainly.
She could not expel air in such fashion before her husband. Not before anyone. She swallowed the belch and promptly let out a hiccup in its stead.
Drat it all.
