She, on the other hand, felt as frayed as a worn, soiled hem.
Julianna wondered if she could ignore him for the remainder of their walk to the breakfast table. Cagney House was not a massive edifice; indeed, it was rather modest, being an ancillary holding of the Marquess of Northampton. But for some reason, the journey to breakfast felt as if it were taking a century to pass.
“Are you not going to answer me,chérie?” he prodded with his silken baritone.
“I have precious few belongings here in London,” she snapped, nettled. “My life is not here. It has not been for two years.”
His jaw tensed. “Your life is herenow.”
She wanted to argue the point with him. She had made a life for herself in New York, it was true, but it had never felt like home. No place had except him. But that had been nothing but a chimera. Her life in New York was hers in a way he had never been, and she would reclaim that life soon enough.
They reached the breakfast table at last. Servants were finishing laying out the sideboard with what appeared to be an excellent spread of fresh fruit, eggs, and bacon. Her traitorous stomach rumbled. At least she knew she would not go hungry at Cagney House.
“I will need to return to New York City,” she told Shelbourne then, because she longed to nettle him, and also because it was true.
She could not manage her business from across an ocean. She would need to be present. But he did not yet know about her business or her plans. And she was not certain when she wanted to tell him. Everything had happened with such haste. It was her last remaining secret. The sole part of her that remainedhers.
What was left of her independence, such as it had ever been. The promise of freedom she had so briefly tasted. If she revealed too much, she risked the chance he would never approve of her leaving him as she hoped.
“That will be all,” Shelbourne clipped to the servants, prompting them to dutifully scatter and withdraw from the room.
The door had scarcely closed when he turned to her, his jaw hard. His countenance set in stone. “You will not be returning to New York City. I made that clear.”
His words set her on edge. Further opposition was not what she wanted, not what she needed. “You cannot make demands of me, Shelbourne. I am not yours to rule.”
“You are my wife.” He faced her, exuding a dangerous energy. “I may have been incapable of stopping you from running off to America two years ago, but everything changed yesterday and do not forget it.”
“As if you would have stopped me from leaving.” She let out a harsh laugh. “You were probably too busy with your mistress to notice I had gone.”
Drat.There went her wayward tongue and emotions again, getting the better of her. Revealing far too much.
He gave her a dark look. “You are not leaving me, Julianna. We are married, and I intend to make certain you uphold your part of our bargain.”
“Mayhap you accomplished your goal yesterday.” She skirted past him, intent upon filling her plate, eating, and then fleeing his presence.
Being near him was perilous to her calm and her heart both.
He followed her, however, plucking the plate she retrieved from her grasp. “Do not pretend you did not enjoy yourself last night,chérie. You came four times.”
Her face was scalding. “Shelbourne!”
“What? You dislike hearing the truth? You do possess an affinity for lies, I own.”
As if they were not feuding, he piled the plate with everything she ordinarily preferred for breakfast.Oeufs cocotte, hothouse fruit, a rasher of bacon. Drat his rotten, untrustworthy, handsome hide for thinking he knew her.
For knowing her.
For tearing down her every wall.
For making her love him.
Foreverything.
“I can fill my own plate,” she argued, reaching for the dish.
He moved it from her reach with fluid ease. “Of course you can.”
“Then kindly allow me to do it.”
