Alice screamed as Adam’s fist landed on Gerald’s nose, knocking the man’s head back. As the blood instantly started to flow, her former brother-in-law drew a handkerchief from his pocket.
“You can hit me, but you can’t erase her past. I don’t hear your wife disavowing my words, do you?”
In fact, no one heard anything more since the room had gone silent.
“Get away from her,” Adam spoke into the unnerving quiet, his tone low and menacing.
Around them, Alice saw the shock on the other guests’ faces. Adam had been brought low enough to brawl at a private party.The mortified looks were directed at her husband, not at Gerald, who’d been unthinkably wronged in polite society. And it was all her fault.
However, as if being punched in the face was not a dreadful breach of civility in their world, while trying to maintain his dignity, Gerald shrugged and turned away.
His last remark, sounding loud in the still hushed drawing room, resonated in her ears. “You’ll find out the truth, Diamond. Mark my words.”
Alice realized she was trembling, and it wasn’t because of Gerald’s threats, nor that every gentleman and lady was openly gawking at her. It was the way Adam looked when he finally faced her.
“I think we should go home and talk.” His tone was calm but cool. Polite as a stranger, in fact.
She would have to go further back in her past and tell him everything.
“Is our marriage basedon untruths?” Adam asked, and for the first time, she saw something in his eyes other than admiration or love.
Thankfully, it wasn’t disdain which would be the end, but it was mistrust which might also spell disaster.
Unless she rectified it at once.
“I did withhold the entire truth,” she said, licking her lips. If only she’d told him at the outset what a stupid woman he was falling for.
“I cannot say I am now without wariness,” he admitted. “You lied about being a governess, about your name, about why youleft London. You ran away from me without a goodbye as if you didn’t care whether we saw one another again. You withheld details about the current Lord Fairclough’s threats. And now, I have to listen to that arse insinuate that you will be unfaithful. Why would he think such a thing?”
Alice was seated on one side of the hearth in his study and Adam on the other. He’d taken her into that room on purpose, she surmised, to keep their bedroom as a sanctuary, a place only of true love and pure passion.
“Richard was not entirely to blame for our dreadful marriage.”
“What do you mean?” Adam asked, looking older for his tight-lipped appearance.
She twisted her skirts in her fingers. “I mean to say, it wasn’t as if he tricked me into marrying him. The sordid truth is that I was a flirtatious debutante. I enjoyed the power I had over the young men and led them on because I could. I was not like Lady Susanne. Rather, I enjoyed playing games. Despite being smart enough to know better, I did it anyway, lacking all of her sweetness.”
“Go on,” he said, sounding weary as he watched the coals cooling in the hearth.
“You won’t like this,” she warned him.
“No, I probably won’t, but not knowing is killing me. Also, it is straining our marriage, don’t you think? With every new discovery of something to which I am not fully privy, I feel more like we are strangers.”
“I understand.” She rose to her feet, gestured for him to remain seated, and then Alice began to pace. “I thought Richard Fairclough to be a rum duke the first time I met him. Did you know him?”
“Onlyofhim. He was a few years older, and we didn’t run in the same circles.”
“No, I suppose not, or I would have met you,” she agreed.
He sighed. “I would not have been ready for you, nor for marriage, not four or even three years ago.”
She nodded. She hadn’t been ready either, at least not for what occurred.
“I behaved inappropriately with more than one man during the Season. Escaping the neglectful watch of my mother was easy. I let more than one suitor take me into a dimly lit garden or a discrete alcove or even the dark walk at Vauxhall for a kiss that wasn’t stolen but given freely.”
Adam stared at her with his deep blue eyes, honest and clever, and her cheeks burned with shame.
“I relished their attention, to be honest.”
