He wrinkled his brow, feigning innocence when he knew exactly what she meant. “Don’t be foolish.”
Her glare darkened. “Don’t try to make me think I don’t see what is right in front of me.” Her voice shook with the power of her emotions. “I am only in this family of yours as far as you desire. That much is very clear.”
He folded his arms. “What are you talking about?”
Her expression transformed from one of just anger to a mixture of hurt. Seeing that there, knowing it was caused by him, he felt like an ass of the highest order.
“You will make me spell it out? Very well. The more I come to know Lizzie, the more I realize she isafraidof coming out. Afraid of London. I haven’t pressed her on that topic because I know she will tell me in time if she trusts me enough. Butyoudon’t want me to know the truth. Not ever.”
Hugh stared at her a long moment. He had come to realize over the past few weeks just how wonderfully kind and accepting Amelia was. Under any other circumstance, he might have encouraged his sister to confide in her. Lizzie needed a friend.
But it wasn’t that simple. Amelia had been involved with the same young man who had crushed Lizzie. Once she knew that, Amelia was too clever not to put the pieces together of why Hugh had pursued her. Why he had said that Walters was a bastard.
He had no idea how she would react to that. How she would feel if his lies came out now, when they were still feeling out their relationship, their future.
Perhaps someday he would feel comfortable enough to tell her. But now? Now it felt like he could lose her if she knew.
Lose everything that had come to mean so much to him.
“She is my sister,” he said softly.
Amelia shook her head. “She wishes to be mine, as well. And if you don’t want that, then it makes me wonder, yet again, why I am here.”
“Because you are my wife,” he said, rushing forward, hands outstretched.
“Am I?” she whispered, her voice trembling once again. “I don’t feel like it.”
Her face crumpled as she turned and walked away. As she exited the room, Hugh had a flash of desire to call after her. To make her come back, to fall on his knees and tell her every painful part of his story from beginning to end. To give her what he had spent a lifetime trying to push away, not share.
But he wasn’t strong enough. So all he could do was stand in the middle of his ballroom and wish things were different.
Chapter Sixteen
Amelia sat at the desk in her study, writing a letter to her father. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. She’d said that was what she was doing, she had a piece of paper in front of her withDear Fatherscribbled across the top, but she was not writing. She was fuming, staring at the window toward the garden below and reliving her last conversation with Hugh.
Just as she had been doing since the previous afternoon.
Why his behavior bothered her, she could not say. After all, she had never wanted a marriage to this man. This frustrating, utterly handsome, completely irresistible man. If he wanted to lock her out and have a marriage that involved no true connection, why did it matter?
Except that it did. It mattered a great deal. Nothing had changed that. Not a feigned headache. Not a night alone in her chamber. Her emotions still bubbled inside her.
She pushed the letter aside and put her elbows on the desktop and her head in her hands. The walls in this house were driving her mad, that was all. She was too close to the problem, too close to the attraction. Perhaps when they returned to London, she would be able to detangle herself and gain some perspective.
There was a light knock on her door that adjoined their chambers, and she turned slightly. She frowned. Hugh stood in the entryway, watching her closely.
“Come in,” she said after what felt like an eternity had passed between them.
He did so and slowly closed the door behind himself. She tracked the movement, hating how her body warmed at the idea of being alone with him.
Traitor.
“I wanted to talk to you,” he said.
She arched a brow. “Why? It seems we have little to say.”
His expression tightened and she saw a flash of both frustration and pain in his gaze. He drew a long breath. “I missed you in my bed last night, Amelia.”
She rose and took a step toward him. “Then you do not wish to talk—this is about my body. I would not deny you. It seems I cannot, at any rate. I am a slave to the desires you have awakened in me. So take it.”
