* **
The next morning, Florette took one look at Diantha’s swollen eyes and sent for a cold compress. She neither asked questions nor gave any indication that she had heard about last night’s confrontation, although Diantha was sure the entire ship must know about it.
However, as the maid brushed out her hair, she did remark that Lord Rossburn spent several hours playing cards in the first-class saloon the previous evening.
As she watched their reflections in the dressing room mirror, Diantha considered the woman’s words. “That sounds rather like spying on my husband.”
“I would not dream of doing anything so disrespectful, milady.” The servant sniffed as she wound her hair into a chignon and secured it. “I merely happened to overhear it in passing and thought you might be interested.”
Her reflected gaze caught the servant’s in the glass. “Indeed. In that case, it would not be in the least offensive to mention what you might overhear—in passing.”
Florette nodded. “I understand perfectly.” They exchanged mischievous smiles.
“Would milady care to take a stroll around the deck?” She shook out Diantha’s mantelet.
“Thank you. I think the fresh air would do me good.” Her presence outside her cabin would also stop any talk that she had gone into hiding after last night’s debacle. A thought struck her. “Odd.”
“I beg milady’s pardon?” Florette, buttoning her own mantle, raised an eyebrow in question.
“At least my husband doesn’t keep me under lock and key.”
Encountering Kieran during their stroll caused her some anxiety, but he greeted her courteously and even joined them. She expected he also wished to avoid gossip, but he proved pleasant enough company.
The rest of the day passed unexceptionally, and as thesenhorapleaded a headache and excused herself from dinner, Diantha quite enjoyed the meal. In the Brazilian beauty’s absence, her husband exerted himself to amuse her, along with the rest of the company. She discovered he was a gifted storyteller as he described his childhood in the Highlands.
The reason for all this attention became clear after they had both retired. A soft tap on their connecting door heralded his entrance. Diantha sat up in her berth. “What are you doing here?”
She had blown out the hanging lamp and could not see his face in the dark, but his baritone caressed her. “I should think that would be obvious. I thought we could continue your introduction to sensual pleasures.”
Her heart leaped at the idea of repeating their activities of two nights ago. Until a shrewd voice in the back of her mind asked if he was trying to procure her complaisance with physical delights.
“Buying people off,” as her father called it, often did not involve the direct payment of money. He got what he wanted by providing much desired goods or services to the other parties. Certainly shewould not deny she wanted Kieran to make her fall to pieces again.
But she also recalled the contempt with which Papa regarded those who gave into him easily. Much as he hated being balked, he respected those who stood up to him far more than those who didn’t.
“I’m still feeling a little pain from before.” While technically she still felt slight tenderness, her excuse sounded flimsy even in her own ears. She bit her lip. If he insisted on exercising his rights as a husband, she could do nothing about it.
His sigh sounded loudly through the dark. “I understand your fears, but I assure you that the pain will be less than before.”
“You told me that I would not have to do anything in bed that made me uncomfortable, and I fear it would this evening.”
He growled in his throat. “Something I am beginning to regret. Diantha, I thought you trusted me.”
“I do.”In bed, anyway. Just now she wanted to be left alone. “But I still wish to wait until I am more recovered.”
“Very well.” He bit the words out and closed her door a great deal more loudly than he had opened it.
The next day he spent a lot of time conversing with thesenhora. When Diantha demanded an explanation, he retorted that he only inquired after her headache.
She decided her health should take a corresponding downturn. By the time they disembarked at Le Havre, she had barred him from her bed for the remainder of their voyage. The train ride to Paris, in aprivate car arranged for by Quinn Shipping Line’s French office, took place in an atmosphere of frigid civility. Even the knowledge that the Henriques had remained on board to travel to Lisbon failed to cheer her up.
They stayed in a town house in a fashionable street of the eighth arrondisement. After the dark-panelled suite aboard theColumbia, Diantha settled into the airy rooms with pleasure.
Her elation crumbled when she discovered that Kieran had already gone out for the evening. Finding that she could not face the dining room alone, she ordered a tray in her boudoir.
She tried reading after she finished the solitary meal, but rejected the French fashion periodicals after discovering several articles about her own trousseau in them.
Even Monsieur Jules Verne’s latest work, found after she wandered down to the library, failed to keep her interest. After the first chapter, she glanced at the gilded Louis Quinze clock on the library’s immense marble mantelpiece. Not even midnight. She sighed, shelved the book, and returned to her room.
