They reached the bottom of the stairs. He knew the way to his guest chamber; it was the same room in which he had stayed before. Nothing much had altered within that particular room. It smelled the same as he had recalled, a blend of soap, laundered bedclothes, and faint hints of furniture polish: beeswax, oil, turpentine.
And yet, everything else had changed.
He was married.
What the hell had he done?
Why had he forced her hand? How could he bear to live this life with her, to spend each day beneath the same roof, without touching her? And how could he touch her when he believed her capable of sending him to prison?
“I know where you were.” Her words had softened. “I only wish I had known before, when I could have helped you.”
He did not want warm words or her concern. Those confused him, made him feel vulnerable toward her. Made him want to forget everything that had befallen him in favor of a future with her. Clinging to resentment and bitterness was safer.
“Youcouldhave helped me,” he told her. “You chose not to do so.”
Her smile was sad. “If I had known your true name, I could have looked foryou. I exhausted myself searching for Robin Carstairs. He was nowhere to be found.”
So she had claimed before.
Convenient.
“You could have asked your husband.”
“Do you not think I did? What do you imagine happened? One day you were here, the next you were gone, and he was here in your place. Do you not suppose I suspected him? Do you not imagine I begged and pleaded and threatened and did everything else in my power to try to wrest the truth from that vile man?”
She was trembling.
Her eyes glistening with unshed tears.
He did not want to see this. Did not want to entertain the possibility she could be telling him the truth about the role she had played in his imprisonment.
What if sheistelling me the truth?
“Today was interminably long,” he said instead of arguing or further entertaining her claims. “I wish to get some rest.”
“What have you eaten today?” she asked instead of agreeing they should part ways as he had expected.
His stomach, which he had done an excellent job of ignoring, chose that moment to rumble. Loudly. He could neither stay it nor pretend he had not heard it.
“Tea,” he admitted. “And toast.”
“The diet of an invalid.” She frowned at him. “You must take something more than that. Come with me.”
“You are not my mother,” he snapped at her.
His was long dead.
Much like his heart, his soul. All slain by the Duke of Longleigh.
How surreal it was to be married to his sire’s duchess, to be inhabiting the home that would have been his had his mother wed Longleigh.
“No,” she agreed, solemn. “I am your wife, Adrian. You may as well reconcile yourself to that fact.”
He swallowed against a rush of emotion. Confused, raw emotion. There was so much of it where this woman was concerned. Old and new, mingling. Complicated.
“I am not hungry,” he lied. “Merely tired.”
His stomach gave voice to his deceptions, however, rumbling loudly as if in punctuation to his proclamation.
