Her vehemence took him aback.
Frowning, he said, “The physician said you are perfectly healthy. As am I. There is no reason we cannot?—”
“There are so many reasons, James.”
Her laugh, a hollow and mirthless sound, raised the hairs on his neck. Her eyes turned as hard and opaque as bark. She didn’t seem like the woman he married…the woman he thought he knew.
“We were never meant to be together.” She said it almost casually. “You know that, don’t you?”
“I know no such thing.” Despite the trepidation slithering through him, he kept his manner firm. “You are overtired. Still recovering from the shock of the attack and now there is an onslaught of visitors. Perhaps I ought to have waited for a more opportune time to bring up?—”
“Now is as good a time as any. In truth, I left things too long.”
At her dismissive tone, his temper rekindled.
“What things?” he said acidly.
A breath passed. A heartbeat.
“Our marriage was a mistake,” she said.
Pain pierced Evie to the quick as she lied to the man she loved and saw his gathering wrath. He was going to hate her before all was said and done.
I must keep him safe, no matter the cost. I cannot let my past threaten his future…his life.
The threat was no longer an abstract fear but a real one, indelibly inked in her journal.
Accidents happen when you least expect it—especially around you, dearest Evie.
Years of guilt morphed into paralyzing anxiety. She risked a glance at her journal. How innocuous it seemed lying amidst pencils and plant cuttings, a sprinkling of soil. Yet it was like a gunpowder charge used to blast tunnels for railways: once ignited, it could bring her life crashing down over her head.
Who knows my secret? What do they want? Why now?
The questions raged, yet she had to shove them aside to deal with her husband.
A muscle ticked along James’s jaw. “The bloody hell it was.”
“I told you from the start that I am not suited for this sort of arrangement.” This was true and allowed her to keep her gaze level. “For intimacy with another.”
“You didn’t seem to mind the intimacy when I tupped you senseless a week ago.”
Lust flamed against her skin. She couldn’t stop herself from blushing. From wanting.
“I am not referring to the physical aspect of our relationship, although it is ungentlemanly of you to mention that occasion,” she said primly.
“Pardon my rudeness. It was a reflexive reaction to being told by my wife that our marriage was a mistake.”
If sarcasm could drip, he would have flooded the greenhouse. With his hands braced on his hips and his gaze stormy, he was clearly itching for a fight. Now that…that she could give him. Marriage was an education, after all, and after nearly four years, she knew how to play upon his sensibilities.
If I must drive him away with anger, then so be it. Anything to keep him safe.
“Look at your family. Then look at us,” she said briskly. “If marrying for love is the family tradition, then it is one that skipped you.”
He jerked as if she’d slapped him. Then his outrage blazed, brighter than the sun, reminding her of her first impression of him: Apollo, the Greek god of light and order. Golden, perfect and admired by all, James demanded the best of himself and those around him. He valued civility and restraint, yet when crossed, his passions could be riled and lethal.
“What happened to you, Evie?” he clipped out. “What turned you cold? Was it losing the babe?—”
“Perhaps that was nature’s way of rectifying something that should not have happened in the first place.”
