“What were you thinking?” he ground out.
“I don’t… I don’t understand.”
“Standing there flirting with another man where anybody could see you and draw whatever conclusions they liked? You don’t understand how that looks?” His jaw tightened further, which she found difficult to believe it could do. “How do you think that makes me look? How do you think it makesuslook? We discussed at length what we needed to do, Susan. You knew we were going to the ball to try to project an appearance that we are in love with one another. And you spend your time talking to another man?”
“I wasn’t flirting with him!”
“I saw you talking to him.”
She stared at him. “Talking isn’tflirting.Why would you assume such a thing? And what did you want me to do? You left me on the dance floor.”
“You knew perfectly well that I had to go socialize with the other gentlemen.”
“Yes, I did,” she snapped. “Andyouknew that in doing so, you were leaving me to my own devices. Did you think I would simply stand there on the dance floor, unmoving, unspeaking, waiting for you to return? What do you think it means to have a wife? That someone will just wait for you wherever you put her? That might work here at Heathmare, where the only things I have to distract me are the books in the library. But at a ball, there are other people to talk to, and if I don’t have you by my side I won’t stand like a statue and wait for your return. I will find someone else to engage my time.”
“Why not speak to your sister, then?” Norman demanded. “That would have been a far more appropriate choice, if you needed company.”
“Because my sister’s husband was actually dancing with her!” Susan threw up her hands. “Should I have torn her away from him? Norman, I understood that you needed to go off and spend time with other gentlemen. I know that was important to you, and I do not question the choice. But you must trustmeto handle my own affairs in your absence.” She studied him. “Why would you think I was flirting with Lord Islington? Do you know him?”
“No, I don’t. What difference should that make?”
“I wondered if you might knowhimto be an errant flirt. I know you haven’t seenmebehave that way, so I don’t know why you’re making these rude allegations. If that’s what you’re worried about, you don’t need to be. He was kind.”
“Oh, yes, I’m sure he wasverykind to you.” Norman’s words dripped with disdain.
“Are you angry because he was kind to me?” Susan asked. “You would prefer that people be cruel, is that it?”
“I would prefer that I not find my wife engaged in flirtation with another man. I don’t think that’s so very much to ask.”
“Flirtation again! There was no flirtation!” How could he think so?
“Don’t ask me to deny the evidence of my own senses, Susan,” he snapped. “I saw the two of you. I saw how friendly he was with you, and I saw the way you responded.”
“Friendly is exactly the word you should choose,” she insisted. “Friendly is exactly what the two of us were with one another—and why shouldn’t we be? Why shouldn’t I make a friend? You sound as if you’re jealous.”
“Is that how you are with all your friends? Smiling at them as if they had hung the moon in the sky for you? Laughing at theirjokes as if they were the cleverest person you had ever met in your life?”
“I laugh when things strike me as humorous,” she informed him. “Lord Islington was funny, and I will not swallow my laughter because you take that to mean there’s a flirtation happening. There was no such thing taking place, I can assure you. And my word on this matter ought to be good enough for you.”
Norman folded his arms and pressed his lips together tightly.
He didn’t want to admit it, but she was making sense. Perhaps he had overreacted. Would she really do what he feared she had done—go out and flirt with another man in a room full of people? Where anyone could see her? Wherehecould see her? Susan was no fool, and he had to admit her story made sense.
Then why don’t I feel more at ease? Why doesn’t it satisfy me to know that she was simply talking to him?
He recalled the easy, open expression on her face. The way she had laughed when the Baron had spoken.
Between Susan and him, everything always felt like sparring. He had thought he liked that—no, hedidlike it. He enjoyed the way she kept him on his toes, the way her eyes sparkled when they fenced with one another.
But there was a part of him that yearned to make her laugh like that. To know she felt joy because of him. And maybe that wasan impossible thing, but it hurt that someone else could achieve it so easily.
God help me. She’s right. I’m jealous.
“You are my wife, Susan. I won’t have you going out and laughing and smiling with other men.” He teetered on the verge of telling her why, but retreated. "It makes my position too precarious. People will assume the worst about the both of us—that you never really cared for me, that you only married me because you wished to become a duchess. And that I’m not capable of holding the interest of my own wife. They’ll think you’re more interested in a lord than in me because of my upbringing. Because I’m an outsider to this world.”
“Nobody will think that,” Susan said.
“Well, it isn’t going to happen again,” he said firmly. “There will be no more conversation with other gentlemen. No little smiles. No laughing at their jokes. When we go out, you may speak to the ladies, or you may speak to me. To the gentlemen, you will say nothing.” His hands clenched into fists, and he turned away from her. He was being overly controlling, and he knew it. He was far out of line.
