Bemused, Julianna ate everything, leaving nothing behind but crumbs. Then, she took a bath and checked on Emily once more before sliding beneath the bedclothes, doing her utmost to ignore the light shining beneath Shelbourne’s door.
* * *
Sidney could notbloody well sleep.
It was to be expected, he supposed, for a man who had spent most nights for the past two years pouring some manner of alcohol or another down his gullet in an attempt to drown the memory of the woman next door. But when said woman was within reach and he had yet to touch her following their marriage that morning, having her so near was the erotic equivalent of perdition.
Julianna.
She was here, the woman who had destroyed him with such callous ease. The woman who had stolen his daughter from him. The woman he loathed. The woman who had left him to gallivant about New York City.
He must not allow himself to soften, to forget what and who she was. What she had done.
For what must have been the two hundredth time, he paced the length of his chamber. His feet and back were beginning to ache from the time he had spent chasing his demons without the bottle. Pacing was not nearly as comforting as getting soused.
But he had a daughter to consider. And a wife.
“Fucking fuck of all fucks,” he growled as his cockstand, which had been incessant since his ill-advised visit to her chamber upon his return that evening, went harder at the reminder Julianna was his now, in a way she had never been before. His in a way that was undeniable. Forever.
And yet, he had not consummated their union.
He should have.
But his pride was too strong. And she had been more skittish than a newborn foal this evening, looking at him with those wide, blue eyes that rivaled the clearest summer’s sky he had ever seen. Making him want her. Taking him back to a different time and place, when her betrayal had yet to tear them apart.
Sidney spun on his heel, furious with himself, furious with Julianna, so furious with everything and everyone, and longing quite desperately for some whisky or wine to dull the pain, that he failed to take note of his proximity to one of the chairs arranged in a small sitting area where no one ever sat. Least of all him.
His foot caught on the carved mahogany leg, stubbing his big toe and sending pain howling up his calf at the same time as he tripped. He went sprawling to the floor in an undignified heap.
An undiluted string of curses fled him. The louder and more inventive, the more satisfying. He pounded his fist on the floor to punctuate each one.
“Fucking dragon cock!”Pound.
Did dragons have cocks? He supposed they would have to. If not, who gave a damn? They were mythical creatures.
“Shit, fucker, damn.”Pound.
His humiliation was complete. Had he hit his head in the fall? Likely. What else to explain this madness descending upon him? The agony in his big toe? Julianna?
He rolled to his back and raised his throbbing foot to discover blood trickling down the toe, his nail partially lifted from the bed.
“Oh, hell. Oh, fuck.”Pound, pound, pound.
He had almost broken off his toenail. Little wonder it smarted like the devil. He hated the sight of blood. It made his head spin.
“Shelbourne?”
The husky, worried voice interrupting his misery was the last goddamn voice he wanted to hear tonight of all nights, particularly as he lay on his back on the carpet of his chamber, with a decimated toenail, throbbing toe, and persistent erection.
Not his own stupidity and clumsiness, nor the pain, had been enough to distract his stupid cock. It wanted what it wanted. He ought to have visited Charlotte. But he had not seen her since Julianna had reappeared in his life.
Had not wanted to.
It would appear he had not answered his new wife quickly enough. She had already invaded his space, his privacy. And now she was hovering over him in some sort of wispy night rail that made him want to tear it off her with his bare hands. And teeth.
He growled at her. “Get the fuck out of my chamber.”
“What happened?” she asked, ignoring him. “I heard a crash and then some angry cursing and banging. Is something amiss?”
