The truth struck with vicious clarity. He was already ensnared. Already compromised. All because of a woman he had known less than a handful of days. A woman who looked at him one moment as though he were something to be adored and in the next like an object to be feared.
His chest tightened, the sensation unfamiliar and unwelcome. He crushed it down at once.
This, this, was not tenderness. It was irritation. Annoyance. A reaction to disorder. Nothing more.
And yet, standing there amid DuMond’s absurd domestic contentment, watching a man kiss his wife as though it were the most natural thing in the world, Argyll felt an unfamiliar tightening in his chest.
It’s bloody annoyance. Nothing more.
A breathy giggle emerged from the marchioness.
Argyll beat his hand harder and more loudly against his leg. It certainly wasn’tenvy. He ceased his tapping.
He had never begrudged other men their pleasures. Matrimony merely happened to be one he had always considered grossly overrated.
Still, the ease of it, the unthinking intimacy, set his teeth on edge.
Not because he wantedthat.
Never that.
But because, for the first time in his life, something had been taken from him without his consent: his detachment.
His fingers curled loosely at his side. He forced them to relax.
How absurd—to feel unsettled over a woman he had known scarcely a handful of days. A woman who looked at him now with uncertainty, as though she feared she had misjudged the bargain she’d struck.
He would not become ridiculous.
Sentiment was a vice like any other—pleasant in moderation, ruinous when indulged. And Argyll had always prided himself on knowing precisely when to walk away.
This…discomfort would pass. It always did.
He merely needed distance.
And perhaps a reminder—sharp and immediate—of exactly who he was.
Argyll jolted. The thin grasp of self-control he never lost didn’t have a thing to do with his wife. Not exactly, per se. Rather, he was sexually frustrated. Frustrated at being denied. He wasn’t emotionally entangled. He knew better than DuMond and Kilburn.
“Argyll?”
His face heated, Argyll whipped his focus to the astounded pair staring at him. “I didn’t say anything!”
“I did not say you did. I was asking if you were all right.”
Argyll squeezed the bridge of his nose.
Mad.I’m going completely mad.
Husband and wife exchanged a look.
Lady Rutherford went up on tiptoe and whispered something to her husband. Whatever it was elicited a smile from the previously jaded gaming hell owner.
DuMond eased a finger along the curve of Lady Faith’s cheek then kissed her tenderly on the lips.
Tender kisses. Argyll pulled a face.
“Spare me,” he mumbled.
