For perhaps the first time, she did not look as though she would mind.
“Percy,” she said. A question, an invitation.
For a moment, he could not think of anything but the extent of his want for her. Drugging, intoxicating, demanding. If he chose it, perhaps tonight she would allow to him take all the things she’d denied him for so long, and tomorrow he could nurse his hangover and the fractures of his broken heart.
Tempting, but he was not that drunk.
There would always be a tomorrow. If he gave himself to her now, he did not think he could face the tomorrow she would offer them.
“I’m sorry for waking you,” he said, clumsier than usual as he pushed himself back and to his feet. Thankfully, it was not far until he reached his own room—or else he might never have made it. “Sleep well, Cecy.”
The nickname slipped from his lips unintentionally. A remnant of the past crashing into their present. It had been a long time since he had given her an endearment; she’d always told him how much she hated that name.
And yet now, she merely stared at him as though waiting for something that would make sense of this interaction.
He, too, was waiting.
“Goodnight,” he said, the words slurring a little as he walked in an almost straight line across her room once more. Some small part of him regretted passing over what had essentially been the most enthusiastic consent he had received in years, but he had too much respect for himself to give way to this.
If he was to have her, he would have all of her, or he would have none at all.
“Percy,” she said when he reached the doorway. “Where were you tonight?”
“White’s. As I told you.”
The silence that greeted him made him feel as though he had somehow said the wrong thing, although he’d only given her the truth.
All their marriage, aside from that lamentable oversight with Caroline, he had given her his truth.
“You didn’t visit her?” she asked finally.
He turned to find Cecily watching him, the moonlight washing her in ghostly light. She could have been a wraith, only half real. Sometimes he felt that way himself.
“No.” This word was stronger than his others, more certain. “I didn’t.”
She slid down the pillows, drawing the blankets up over her head. “You’ll have a sore head in the morning,” was all she said. And yet, as Percy fell face-first into bed, not so much as bothering to ring for his valet, he felt as though that day, and accompanying night, had done more for their marriage than all the wooing of the past four years.
Chapter Five
Percy awoke with a very bad head. A reminder once again that he should not be indulging as freely as he had done twenty years ago. Back then, he might have emerged at least reasonably functional. As it was, by eleven, he had barely allowed the blinds to be drawn and daylight to enter the room—and even that made his head throb.
A knock sounded at the door. “Enter,” he called, fully expecting the breakfast he’d asked to be delivered to his room. Instead, Cecily poked her auburn head through, a tray in her hands.
“You asked for this to be sent,” she said, not meeting his gaze as she brought it to a table in the corner and set it carefully down. “I also took the liberty of asking them to make you some coffee. Mama always used to have some in the mornings when she indulged.”
His stomach flipped at the reminder that she, evidently, recalled his transgression the previous evening. Any equilibrium he’d hoped to find promptly disappeared.
“This is unexpected,” he said, forcing himself out of bed. His robe lay discarded on the back of a chair and he wrapped it firmly around his waist. His head pounded, and if they were to engage in any verbal sparring, he hoped she would at least save it for after they had eaten. “I hadn’t realised I’d requested you to be the one to bring me my meals.”
“I thought you might be suffering.”
He made a noise at the back of his head, biting back his wince as he sank into the chair at the spindly table. On occasion, he wrote his letters here, and her gaze flicked to the pot of ink that sat ready.
To his surprise, he enjoyed the first sip of coffee, and he thought perhaps the day might not be utterly intolerable. “Did your mother often overindulge?”
“Sometimes.” Cecily shrugged and hovered behind another chair. For the first time, he noticed a letter in her hand. “She wrote to me again last week.”
“Oh?” He took another sip and allowed himself a corner of dry toast.
