“Everett?”
Verity scarcely ever called him by his given name. That she had done so now, and in the midst of a crowded ballroom, gave him pause.
He frowned. “Yes?”
Verity’s expression turned melancholy. “You need to speak with Sybil and work out some sort of truce between the two of you. I can’t bear to watch you both making each other so miserable.”
He stiffened. “We are not miserable.”
That was a lie, of course. The last month had been an agony of pleasure, followed by anger and avoidance, in an endless cycle.
“I would give everything I’ve ever had and everything I shall ever own in the future, even my very life, just to have the chance to see Leo one more time. To tell him all the things I never did. To sit with him and bask in his smile. To hold his hand. But I shall never have that opportunity. You have a second chance now, however. You and Sybil both do.”
He didn’t want to hear this. Didn’t want to see the tears glistening in his sister’s eyes. Didn’t want the emotion that was threatening to clog his throat.
“Mind your own bloody business, Verity,” he growled.
And then he stalked away from her before he said something else. Something he couldn’t take back.
The ball was over.
It was half past four in the morning.
And still, there hadn’t been a sound next door from Everett’s bedchamber to suggest that he was within. No familiar footsteps, not the creak in the floor just before the pitcher and basin where he splashed water on his face before he came to her each night. No tap at the door.
Sybil hadn’t spoken with him since she had been seated at his side for supper. And even that conversation had been brief, yet stilted. He had been cool and short, his words carefully measured as if each one cost him dearly.
There was a gaping chasm between them, and she had no notion of how to bridge it. She wasn’t even sure if it was possible to do so. What she did know was that she couldn’t continue to live each day as if they were cold strangers. She was weary of his iciness, of his clenched jaw, his cool, dispassionate stare. She was tired of the only warmth between them sparking to life when he came to her in the night.
Where was he?
Growing ever more restless, she rose from bed where she had been once again trying to distract herself with a book. It hadn’t worked. It never did. She reached for her dressing gown, which had been neatly laid out for her, and drew it on, her fingers working at the closures. In an act of rebelliousness, she had told her lady’s maid to keep her hair pinned up as she had worn it for the ball, knowing Everett preferred it unbound. She slid into herslippers, took up a candle, and decided to go searching for her errant husband.
Her first step was to venture next door into his domain to make sure he wasn’t within. His bedchamber, which she had yet to visit, was cloaked in shadows, the fire in the grate banked and nearly out. The room smelled of his scent, and she felt like an intruder, even though she was his wife.
Hastily retreating, she made her way down the hall to the staircase. As she began her careful descent, that was when she heard it. The faint notes of a piano playing a mournful tune. Somehow, she knew it was Everett.
Following her ears, she meandered through the darkened house, which had blazed with light and echoed with the noise of musicians and hundreds of guests. Now, all was eerily quiet and still, save for the song her husband played.
She found him in the ballroom, a brace of candles illuminating the chamber.
Although his back was to her, she recognized the moment he sensed her presence as she approached, for his shoulders stiffened and he sat straighter. At last, the song came to a haunting conclusion, and there was naught but silence.
“What are you doing here, Sybil?” he demanded without bothering to look in her direction.
“How did you know it was me?” she asked instead of answering.
Everett turned at last on the velvet-tufted bench, swinging his long legs around so that he faced her completely.
His handsome countenance was shadowed. “Your scent.”
Eschewing manners, he didn’t rise to his feet in deference to her presence. Instead, he remained seated, his legs indolently crossed at the ankles. She decided not to admit that she had applied extra perfume to her wrists and throat after dismissingher lady’s maid for the evening earlier. Her pride wouldn’t allow the confession.
“What are you doing, playing the piano at this hour of the morning? You ought to have come to bed by now.”
A sardonic half grin kicked up the corner of his lips. “Were you eagerly awaiting me, darling wife?”
“I worried what was keeping you,” she admitted, though his suggestion had also been true.
