“I forgot to bring my bottle,” she said, a return to her detached tone; so damned swift,toodamned swift.
“Worry not, little raven,” he murmured. Drawing on a lifetime of experience, he maintained an easy countenance, andArgyll stretched a palm to her cheek. “That is easy enough to correct.”
Daria danced out of his reach. “Uh, yes, well I’m not at all worried. It’s only you noticed the absence, and I merely explained why, and then…” She cleared her throat. Her gaze darted about. “Uh, if you’ll excuse me?”
His jaw slackened, and he watched in disbelief as his impeccably composed bride left as quickly as she’d come.
Chapter 14
Somehow, Daria managed to turn the silver key with steady fingers, step outside, and close the door behind her.
When Daria awakened in the afternoon, she’d learned that, at some point, Gregory had carried her into their new home together and left her to rest.
Some two or so hours after she’d arisen, bathed, meandered about her new—very masculine—chambers, and been presented with an evening meal, she realized she’d been mistaken.
Gregory hadn’t left Daria to rest—he’d lefther.
Now, she knewwhy.
Closing her eyes, Daria rested against the panel and laid her palms sideways upon the tight knot in her stomach. It didn’t help.
But for the single cryptictick-tock-tick-tockof the hall clock, silence filled the corridor and rang in her ears.
Even upon the discovery of how her husband had been occupying himself on their wedding night, Daria had fallen into his arms. She was no different than all the ladies about Society. Women she’d pitied for wilting over and around the Duke of Argyll.
Her heart thumped a dull, sickly beat against her sternum.
This is what you get for seeking your husband who hadn’t wanted to be found. The elaborate swirls and accents carved into the oak bit hard against her back, punishing her for her foolishness.
Why would Gregory have come to Daria? From the outset, he’d spoken freely to her and about her. She didn’t possess a beauty worthy for a man such as him. Her husband possessed the power, title, and heavenly good looks. He need just crook afinger or flash a wink to have a whole bevy of worldly Cyprians to choose from.
That weight continued to press on her chest until the muscles became unbearable.
And you know it has nothing to do with his title.Gregory could have but a single bent sixpence to his name and have anyone he desired. His charm alone could have compensated for a lack of title or fortune, and he’d have ended up in the same place—king of a gaming hell, with beauties vying for a spot in his bed.
“Goddamn it!”
Daria’s entire body jolted with the unexpectedness and violence of that profanity. The heavy solid oak door shook damningly at her back, betraying her presence.
She recoiled.
Silence descended on the other side of Gregory’s office door.
Daria ran.
Faster than she ever had during her family’s games of Touch.
Even faster than when she’d glimpsed her father crumple in death and bolted so fast her living family present hadn’t spied her.
The guards stationed throughout gave no reaction to their master’s volatile displeasure, nor to Daria’s frenzied flight past. As she sped towards the floor-to-ceiling gilded mirror, the reflective glass displayed her white skirts whipping about her, giving her the look of a ghost she’d one day become. She may as well be invisible.
But she wasn’t.
The crimson carpet muffled her wild footfalls, but there was no hiding.
Her husband would have ears as golden as the rest of his fallen-angel beauty. Just as he’d know someone had been listening. And it wouldn’t be a difficult riddle for a man with hiswit to gather it’d been Daria. Something he’d confirm with the men with his sentries.
Harsh breaths tore painfully from Daria’s lungs.
