The words should have been playful, but they landed like a challenge. Adrian went very still.
“Catherine,” he said quietly. “Perhaps you should rest after your journey.”
“Oh, I’m not the least bit tired.” She settled into a chair, helping herself to toast with deliberate casualness. “In fact, I’m rather eager to hear about this whirlwind romance. You met and married with astonishing haste, did you not?”
“It happened quickly,” Marianne replied evenly, watching Catherine closely. Something was off here—something she couldn’t yet define.
“Oh, quickly. How very diplomatic.” Catherine’s laugh was bright but brittle. “Tell me, did my brother mention his tendency toward obsession when he proposed? Or was that a delightful discovery reserved for after the vows?”
“Catherine.” Adrian’s voice held real warning now.
“What? Shouldn’t your wife know about your... singular nature? How you fixate upon something until nothing else exists?” She turned to Marianne. “He once spent six months learning ancient Greek merely to read one particular text in the original. Could speak of nothing else the entire time. Drove Father absolutely mad.”
“That’s hardly the same as—”
“Isn’t it?” Catherine pressed. “You see something you desire, and the world ceases to exist until you possess it. Whether it’s a book, a horse—or, apparently, a wife.”
The air grew taut. Marianne looked between them, trying to read the undercurrents.
“You’re upset,” she said gently. “About the marriage?”
“Upset? Why should I be upset?” Catherine’s voice rose. “My brother married a stranger without a word to me. I had to learn of it from gossip in Rome—‘The Beast of Belgravia has taken a bride,’ they said. ‘Some merchant’s daughter—can you imagine?’”
“Catherine, enough.” Adrian stood, his face carved from stone.
“Is it? Because from where I stand, you’ve merely exchanged one obsession for another. India wasn’t distant enough, so now you’ve found a new distraction to keep you from facing—”
“Stop.” The word cracked like a whip. Adrian’s hands clenched, control barely holding. “You have no idea what you’re saying.”
“Don’t I?” Catherine rose to face him, matching his fury. “Five years, Adrian. Five years of letters that said nothing—of silence where there should have been family. And now this sudden marriage? To a woman you barely know?”
“I know enough.”
“Is that so? Or did you simply find another way to punish yourself?”
Marianne stood. “I think perhaps—”
“Stay out of this,” Catherine snapped, then looked instantly stricken. “I’m sorry. That was... I’m sorry.”
“You’re tired,” Adrian said, forcing calm. “Go rest. We’ll speak later.”
“Will we? Or will you vanish into your study again, pretending the past doesn’t exist?”
“I never avoided you. You left.”
“Because you couldn’t bear to look at me!” The words burst out of her. “Every time you saw me, you saw the carriage, the blood, what you lost because of me.”
“That’s not—”
“It is! And now you’ve married someone who doesn’t know, who can look at you without guilt, and you think that makes it all right?”
Silence fell, heavy as lead. Marianne felt like an intruder in her own breakfast room, witnessing a conversation five years in the making.
“You know nothing of my marriage,” Adrian said finally, his voice deadly quiet.
“I know you married her with unseemly haste. I know it followed a scandal. And I know you’re using her as a wall between yourself and the world.”
“Using her?” Adrian’s composure shattered. “You think I married Marianne touseher?”
