Because the Duke of Riverdale wasnude.
Curse the man.
He was gliding through the water as if he were a fish born of the sea, his bare arms and muscled shoulders plowing through the pool in effortless, graceful motion. His back was bare. So too was his arse, which glistened in the flowing lights illuminating the cavern as he dove beneath the water to swim below the surface.
Heat scalded Sybil’s cheeks.
She knew she ought to look away from the spectacle, and yet, she couldn’t. He was a blur of motion, and then he burst forth, water dripping down him in glistening rivulets. He raked the dark strands of his hair from his face, his gaze settling on her.
As when she had confronted him in his bedchamber, Riverdale made no attempt at modesty, no effort to shield himself. He simply lifted himself from the water, his muscles rippling in a delightful display of masculine strength, and then settled his bare rump on the smooth stone surrounding the glimmering pool. At least he had moved quickly enough that theglimpse of a certain portion of his anatomy had been hasty and indistinct.
It occurred to her that he was staring at her expectantly, waiting for her to speak.
Sybil found her voice. “Your Grace. You are shameless.”
“As are you, madam wife. You presume a great deal in interrupting my solitude and possessing the sheer daring to demand a divorce.”
Her plan—which had seemed so bold and infallible when she had first conceived of it at Riverdale Abbey, where she had been left like a forgotten boot—had unraveled with alarming haste. Largely because she had discovered she hadn’t the heart to conduct a meaninglessaffairewith the first agreeable gentleman she came upon.
Unlike her husband, who could apparently bed anyone without conscience.
That last thought set her teeth on edge and stiffened her spine with the reminder that she must not allow herself to be cowed by him. She kept her gaze carefully trained upon his and nowhere else.
“Surely no more presumption than in your suggestion that I endlessly warm your bed until you have what you want from me.”
His eyes remained cold and impervious as he combed fingers through his wet hair. “I don’t recall using the word endless.”
Her hands clenched in her gown at her sides. “The implication is the same. I have no notion if I’m able to bear a child at all, let alone a male child. These matters require time. A great deal of time. To say nothing of the distasteful nature of suffering the marriage bed.”
He raised a brow, his expression insufferably smug. “I can assure you there would be nothing at all distasteful about sharing my bed.”
Something warm unfurled deep within her. Something unwanted. A feeling that she had thought she had banished during his abandonment and absence.
Apparently, Sybil had been wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time, nor would it, she suspected, be the last where her husband was concerned.
“We shall have to disagree on that particular subject, I’m afraid.”
He shrugged. “I would only be exercising my husbandly rights. Rights which you have thus far denied me.”
That set her teeth on edge. “How could I have denied you when you abandoned me?”
“Forgive me, madam. I had no notion that attending to my many ducal responsibilities would be deemed abandonment.”
Resentment swirled through her yet again over the pain Riverdale’s cutting departure and abrupt absence had caused her. “You left meon our wedding day. You didn’t even have the courtesy to tell me yourself.”
“I left you a letter.”
She had been shocked to receive the concise, neatly penned explanation that he had pressing matters that called him away, delivered to her by the housekeeper. No indication of when he would return. No goodbye. He had married her and then walked away from her in the same day. She still couldn’t understand it, nor could she reconcile the cutting, cold stranger confronting her now with the charming, witty suitor who had so swiftly courted her at Eastlake Hall. The man who had stolen her heart with such ease.
“You left me a letter, yes,” she conceded. “But no indication that you would indefinitely leave me whilst you carried on as if you were a bachelor. Did you think that word of your flirtations and conquests would not reach me?”
Scandal had come to her at Riverdale Abbey, where she had awaited his return. In newspapers where sly articles hinted at the roguish behavior of the Duke of R. In letters, Alice had written as gently as possible that Sybil’s husband had continued on with his life as if he’d never married at all. To all the world, he had remained a bachelor. Meanwhile, Sybil had been left to navigate the complexities of Riverdale Abbey on her own for months, all her own letters to him going unanswered.
She had been forgotten.
He gave her a thin smile. “Gossip abounds, madam. One cannot concern oneself with the vagaries of common fame.”
His callousness reopened the wounds she had been determined to heal.
