Those beautiful hazel-green eyes were all over the room, which he didn’t think was common for a normally serene womanlike her. She was currently watching his hand on his fork after the footmen served the first course, and now she was fixated on the space right between his brows, which he knew from catching glimpses of himself in the mirror was typically where his forehead creased when he was upset.
It reminded him that while she was his wife, she was also a stranger.
As his knife scraped across his plate, he flinched, for the silence had stretched for far too long now. Finally, after swallowing, Evelyn looked up at him and met his eyes.
“Has the house always felt like a mausoleum?”
He nearly choked on his wine. “Pardon me?”
“This house,” she said, waving around them at this small dining area, with walls that were nearly bare but for a few portraits. “It is all very opulent. All of the gold and expensive, heavy, draperies and furnishings. If it were not for your ancestors on the wall, staring at me disapprovingly, I would wonder if this was a family home or a public museum. Actually, museums have much more personality.”
Suddenly, she stopped, rigidly holding her spine straight. “I am so sorry. That was uncalled for.”
Asher blinked, taken aback that she had insulted his family home so politely.
Then, unexpectedly, he found himself smiling, and after a moment, he tipped his head back and laughed, a true, belly laugh with humor unlike anything he’d felt in some time.
When he finally caught hold of himself, it was to find her staring at him, her eyes wide, filled with a spark of something dangerous.
“I know that is how it feels,” he finally said. “I have lived here my entire life.”
“Do you actually feel the same, or are you just trying to make me feel better?”
“I did not decorate this place, so it is no insult to me,” he said with a shrug, realizing that, for the first time in a long time, someone – besides Julian – was being honest with him, saw things in a similar regard to how he did. He smiled slightly at her, and the tension eased.
“I fear I may already have disappointed the house simply by existing within it,” Evelyn said, leaning toward him with a small smile, and Asher sensed that she was, perhaps, testing him to see how he would respond.
Asher shook his head. “Nonsense. It survived my childhood as well as my brother’s. You will not break it.”
He stiffened as he realized what he had said. It was the first time he had mentioned his brother in months. But Evelyn continued, making him feel that it was no mistake.
“I shall endeavor not to be more destructive than determined children.”
Despite his hesitation, Asher smiled slightly, wondering what Evelyn had been like as a child. “I would advise against underestimating yourself.”
Evelyn tilted her head to the side. “You speak differently when you forget to be careful.”
Asher looked up at her in surprise. “Do I?” he asked, his voice quiet.
She didn’t hide what she thought, and he liked it.
“Yes. Your voice softens. You sound less like a duke issuing decrees.”
“And more like what?”
“A man having a conversation.”
His gaze lingered on her before he responded.
He knew he had stared at her a moment too long when she questioned him on it.
“Is there something amiss?” she asked, blinking.
Asher blinked, startled out of his reverie. “No. Forgive me. I was… listening. Considering what you were saying.”
“If staring at me helps, then so be it,” she said, a small, uncertain smile on those beautiful, plush lips that were slightly stained red from her wine.
The atmosphere shifted as Evelyn hesitated, and Asher had the sense she wished to ask him something. “Go on,” he said. “Ask me.”
