He scrubbed a manicured hand over his smooth jaw. “Am I supposed to sit here all day twiddling my thumbs while my wife works to support her invalid husband?”
“Of course not. What would you like to do?”
His eyes drifted over her, then and seemed to simmer with an inner heat that sent her pulse racing.
Then he looked away. “I could walk into town, I suppose. Visit a local assembly.”
She winced. “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Someone mightrecognize you and word might travel back to the earl. As nobody knows of our marriage—”
His eyes returned to hers, sullen. “And you do not wish word to get out about the two of us sharing a dwelling and risk having your annulment denied.”
She pressed her lips together, unable to counter his argument.
He heaved a sigh. “Fine. I’ll just stare at the walls and lose what’s left of my mind.”
“Clearly, we must avoid that outcome,” she said dryly. “There must be something we can come up with you might find stimulating.”
“Yes, something stimulating sounds like an excellent notion,” he drawled.
She could not miss the hunger in his eyes at her poor choice of words, nor could she stop the flush stealing up her cheeks.
And then, inspiration struck. “Wait. I have an idea.” She dashed through his chamber, and headed for her own and the trunk within. A quick search unearthed an unused sketch pad and pencil which she gathered and delivered to him.
He took the items and gazed at them blankly. “What do you expect me to do with these?”
Drake had mentioned on more than one occasion that Ted had an artistic bent. Perhaps she had that wrong. She bit her lip, feeling foolish. “Never mind. I’ll take them back to—”
He pulled the pad and pencil out of her reach, as if she intended to snatch them away from him. “No. Leave everything. Perhaps I’ll try my hand at a scribble or two.”
She bit back a smile.
“If there’s nothing else, wife? My next appointment is due any moment I’m afraid.” He sent her a sardonic smile. “Mr. Danvers, with my tea. He’s a stickler for keeping to a schedule.”
The moment heclosed the door on Georgina, he looked at the pencil in his palm, then gripped it in his hand. It felt right. Like it belonged there. Like he’d been born holding it, just so.
He wandered back onto the balcony and dropped onto the slatted teak bench, situated between his guest chamber and Georgina’s, then flipped to the first page of the sketch pad and closed his eyes.
An image of Drake, his friend, he now understood, congealed. He batted back an initial wave of nausea and forced himself to maintain the vision. Though he could not hear the man’s voice, could not remember him, per se, he could be no one other than Georgina’s brother, with those dimples and those dark curls.
Ah.But this memory, if he could call it that, this was new. He saw Drake in his uniform, standing at attention before a company of soldiers, hair powdered as befitting an officer.
He started to sketch the scene. It came to life before his eyes. He was good. Very good. A queasy wrongness came over him, urging him to set the pencil aside. To store the pad in a bottom drawer.
At the same time, this felt like a piece of him, the real him, rising to the surface.
In other words, he was damned confused.Again.Gritting his teeth against the conflicting emotions, he kept at the drawing.
In the distant recesses of his brain, disjointed words echoed.Dissolute. Libertine. Riff Raff. Irregular.
Ashamed.
Disappointed.
Laughingstock.
Enough,he shouted inwardly.
The words receded, even as a rage that had no direction snakedthrough him.
