“I admit I haven’t thought of some of the consequences,” Leo said coldly.
“You are so stressed, Leo. I thought marriage would have softened some sides of you. But then again,” Aaron looked turned cold and calculating, “not everybody makes the right choice. Some might even regret it.”
Aaron smiled, and his attention turned to the ballroom, at the couples twirling. His gesture was casual, but his eyes remainedlocked on Leo, drinking in the moment. Leo’s gaze followed, drawn by a force darker than curiosity.
Across the sea of swirling color, Prim was dancing. With Nathaniel. The feeling in his gut was primitive, deprived of any logic, and bypassed all security forces he had placed in strategic points in his mind.
“When one makes a hasty decision,” Aaron dripped poison, “they would always question the decisions they didn’t make.”
Leo ignored him and took a step towards the ballroom before he stopped himself. His eyes were fixed on the spectacle before him. Nathaniel was holding her with that cold effectiveness he always carried himself with. Prim was comfortable in his arms, her body allowing him to guide her, her hand on his shoulder, and the other resting in his hand, sure and relaxed. Nathaniel danced with precision, and Prim, his fiery Prim, followed that precision with ease.
Then it happened. Nathaniel said something that could have been anything from an accountant’s report to a love sonnet. After all, his impassive expression gave out nothing. But whatever he said, the result was the same. Prim laughed. Not that polite, reserved laugh she deployed for the ton. That real, gurgling laughter she reserved only for him, for Abigail, for her sisters. The one that stripped away the Duchess mask and only left Prim.
It lit up the room around her, and Nathaniel was the main beneficiary of that light. Leo never had anything against theDuke of Greyhaven despite his… challenging demeanor. But right this moment, profound hatred that he had never felt in his whole life. And yet if it were only hatred, he could have handled it. This feeling that demanded attention and kept him pinned on the floor, his eyes trained on Pri,m was rooted deeper.
“Leo?” Edwin demanded, so close and yet so far away. “Are you all right?”
No, Leo was not all right. Nathaniel was her suitor. She used to laugh with him, too. She wore his sapphires in public, she was alone with him in that maze. Leo drew a deep, controlled breath that did nothing to fill the hollow in his chest. The air was thin, useless.
In another life, Prim would have never gone to the Covington ball, and she would be now married to Nathaniel, because that darned man was no idiot and would have snatched Prim. She would live with him and his child.
Leo’s jaw tightened when he realized what he was looking at. This was not just a dance, but a ghost of a path not taken. A path of quiet respectability, perhaps of gentle affection, of a life free from the hate of his family and the weight of his vengeance.
With every turn, Leo realized with dread that he had Prim. Yes, he did. She bore his name, lived in the house, and warmed his bed. Her body and her loyalty were his. But her heart… Did her heart belong to the Duke of Greyhaven?
“Damn!” He hissed.
He took a step back and managed to withdraw his eyes from Prim’s laughter, his hands in fists, his whole body locked up. It was the hardest step of his life. All his being was set in crossing the crowd and tearing them apart, grab Prim and kiss her breathless, brand her, show him and everyone that Prim was his! And it took all he was to hold back.
“Leo,” he felt Edwin’s hand on his shoulder. “Do not make a scene.”
Leo couldn’t stand himself anymore, he was fighting with his skin. Nothing in him agreed to settle. This petty jealousy taking over him was clouding his mind. The self-loathing was crippling him, that feeling that he was less than, that he was unworthy of a woman who got tangled in his problems, and he was useless in protecting her.
“I,” he managed to sound civil. “I need some air.”
He left the room and headed out. There in the cold of night, he breathed in and out to tame his heart. Why was this tempest raging in his heart? Leo had craved things before, even people. He saw what others had, and he wanted them for himself. And he usually got them.
This was different. This was more, this was more than envy, more than jealousy, more than responsibility. And he hated it more than anything else.
“Prim,” he said in the dead of the night.
CHAPTER 23
Fire Ambers
Prim didn’t know if she had to feel relieved when the Mildenhall Estate appeared or feel even worse than she already did. The ride from the ball to their home was a silent one. Prim felt there was a shift in the air, and she didn’t know how to interpret such a swift change. It was even worse than when she first came to the estate after their wedding.
On the way, she had tried to joke about the ball and talk about her sisters, but Leo remained impassive, looking out the window of the carriage at the night London streets. She had her suspicions. She had seen Aaron approach him, and she was certain that Leo’s half-brother wouldn’t have anything good to say at all.
They reached the entrance to their house, and Leo helped her out, but then he all but ran to his room, leaving her alone in the empty hallway.
Prim decided that it was the same as when they returned from the disastrous family dinner. It was something that perhaps had to do with his family, and he was keeping her at arm’s length.
She entered her room, and her maid helped her into her nightgown. She combed her hair, looking at the door between the two rooms now permanently unlocked, but hesitated. Last time she tried to talk to him about his mother, he got upset and was downright aggressive. It would be better to let him be for the moment. Perhaps she would get her chance to talk to him during breakfast
Prim slipped under the covers but couldn’t sleep. The truth was that after that night, she audaciously went to his study, and they never spent the night in separate beds. Now she felt alone, that cold feeling she had that first month of their marriage creeping in through her cracks.
She was staring at the amber of her fire when the door between the rooms flung open, hitting the wall, making the crystal droplets of the lamp on her nightstand chime.
