He raised both brows. “Is it of your concern?”
“No,” she said immediately. Perhaps this was a good thing. Now she would have time to think, and come to a conclusion about what she would do about William. Still, she knew she looked unwell, flushed and bright-eyed and out of breath, though she had done nothing particularly strenuous. She waited for Percy to ask about her wellbeing, to pry until he had the answers from her, ripped from her tongue, no matter how unwilling she was to let him in.
Instead, he merely looked at her face, frowned, then picked up his cane and turned to the door. She froze, her expectancy dissolving into . . . surprise.
Yes, that was it. Surprise. Certainly not disappointment, given that she had no intention of telling Percy about William.
“Will you be out for dinner?” she blurted, and he turned from the doorway.
“I imagine so. I’d say not to wait up, but I know you won’t.” With a nod that felt better suited to a casual acquaintance than to a wife, he left the house.
“Shall I take these packages upstairs, my lady?” her footman asked, nodding to the boxes still in his arms.
Absently, she nodded and followed him up. Once in her dressing room, she sank onto the sofa as the servants put away her new purchases. All around her, the sound of the empty house felt as though it settled into her bones. She thought about Arabella, no doubt home with her handsome captain husband, sharing what Cecily knew to be a very happy life together.
She thought about William, who had seemed so pleased to see her, so ready to enter into a flirtation, and who could never truly be hers.
Then she thought about her husband. The life she’d forged for herself, better or worse.
The ring on her finger almost seemed to mock her. All the times she had wished a different man had put it there, and now he had finally arrived—too late.
Would that he had asked her to marry him instead of kissing her. He should have gone straight to her mother to ask for permission to court her. In fact, it was odd he had not. She frowned, thinking it through. For years, she had placed him on a pedestal, thinking that he was everything Percy had never been to her, but now she considered her memory of him against the man she had met that day.
Every instinct screamed at her to enter into a flirtation with him and succumb to all the feelings that had swept her away when she’d been younger. But a certain level of womanly wisdom bade her wait. He did not seem like a man who had wasted away over heartbreak, and he certainly did not appear as though he valued her above all others.
After all, he had not sought her out when he’d returned to London. That point still stung. The only reason they had met at all was by chance and Arabella’s machinations. And yes, he had appeared delighted to see her, but she could not deceive herself that there was anything of the lover about him. The flirt, perhaps. But if he had ever loved her, he did no longer.
The question was whether he could love her again. And if she wanted him to.
The week passed indeterminably slowly, made worse by the fact that Percy did not join her for dinner for three nights in a row. Previously, whenever he’d been home, he had sat with her and they had made stilted small talk, but now he made no appearance.
It was not strictly unusual for them to eat separately. Often, she was the one to have left in search of more entertaining options while Percy remained at home. With the situation this way around, she found it . . . unpleasant.
Until now, she had never considered what it must have been like for him. Had he eaten here with a newspaper or one of his steward’s reports? She knew he frequently made investments, though she was unsure precisely about what. It had never occurred to her to ask. Did he eat at his desk while working? Or did he lean back in his chair with a glass of port and lead everyone around him to believe he was indifferent to his situation?
After all, he had been a bachelor, living in this same house, before he had married. What difference did a marriage make when they were never with one another?
She pressed her lips together. Coming from a large and busy household, where dinner was sacred and they were all expected to eat together, she found this silence unpalatable.
Then there were the servants to consider. She wanted no one to know of this new arrangement, and she felt their eyes on her, imagined the weight of their judgement that her husbanddisliked her company so much that he had rather take his dinner elsewhere in the house.
Before she reached the final course, she pushed back her plate. “My compliments to the cook,” she said, mechanically, as she rose and moved to the door. A footman opened it for her, and she took stock of the empty house.
She had no plans for the evening. That was the problem. If she had just found something else to distract herself with, she would never have noticed how many empty rooms Somerville House boasted. A drawing room, a music room, three small parlours, a library, a billiards room, a dining room, a morning room. All downstairs. Percy’s study.
More to the point, Percy’spresencewas what irritated her the most. If he’d gone out, she could have excused his absence, but she knew he had not left, which meant he had rather eaten separately than joining her for dinner.
Unacceptable.
The restlessness bubbled over, and she made her way to his study—that indomitably male space she had never thought to breach.
Until now, that was.
If he intended to embarrass her before the servants, he would find she did not take it lightly. Dining together was not asking too much of him, and after all, when she was home, she dined with him. It was only fair he did the same for her.
Just as she suspected, when she opened his study door, he was indeed there, a candle lit before him and a half-eaten tray of food to one side. At her entrance, he glanced up, and his brows rose.
“You weren’t at dinner,” she said by way of greeting.
