She couldn’t tell him Daffin had told her. She’d promised Daffin. She sat down across from Mark, reaching for words of reassurance. “I do, but I didn’t find out until—”
His voice rose. “You knew? Before we married, you knew?”
She took a deep breath. She had to be honest with him. “Yes, I knew. But I don’t see what—”
“And your mother and grandmother knew too?”
He had to listen to her. She had to explain. “Yes, but—”
He shot to his feet. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew?” Each harsh word sounded like a crack from a pistol.
Her anger ignited then, and she rose from her chair, lifting her chin to meet his angry gaze head-on. “Why didn’t you tellme? You should have!”
“I have never publicly acknowledged my family and I never intend to,” he snapped. “As far as I’m concerned, they don’t exist. That’s why I never told you.”
“Why didn’t you tell methatthen?” she demanded, her voice rising to match his. “Why would you keep it from me?”
He slammed the palm of his hand on the tabletop, making her jump. “Why didn’t you ask me about it when you found out, instead of sneaking around feigning ignorance?”
She pressed her fists against her hips, arms akimbo. “I wantedyouto tell me!”
He sucked air through his closed teeth. “Is there anything else you need to tell me?”
“Yes.” Nicole straightened her shoulders and met his gaze squarely. She cringed now when she thought about how cavalier she’d been with words back then. “While we’re on the subject. You should probably know that I’m an unofficial member of the Bow Street Runners. I work with them for bounties whenever the mood strikes.”
He stepped closer to her, too close, so close that she felt the heat of his body, of his words, of his rage burning her. “I already know that.”
“What?” she gasped, her heart beating so hard in her chest that it ached.
“I’m training to become a spy. Do you think I wouldn’t have concluded where my own wife goes when she’s out?”
“You spied onme?” Betrayal ripped at her insides. He’d led her into a trap and sprung it on her.
“You failed to tell me,” he countered.
Her fists remained clenched at her sides. She wantedto lash out at him. Wanted to hurt him. “Does that bother you too?” She folded her arms across her breasts to protect her heart, even as she refused to step back from his hulking proximity. “Do you not want your wife doing something other than being a quiet little mouse? Because that’snotwho you married.”
Anger transformed the face she so loved, rendering it a stranger’s. “I’m beginning to think I have no idea who I married.”
“You’re right. You don’t know me at all,” Nicole retorted, looking away from his stony face. Tears burned the backs of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She refused to show him her weakness.
“I know you’re a liar and a schemer.” He spoke the words softly, but they slashed into her heart as if he’d run her through with a blade. “What else don’t I know, my darling wife?”
She whirled on him and swiped the pages of the letter and the flowers off the tabletop with one swift movement. “You should also know I’m not about to stay here with you and listen to your insults.”
“Fine. Leave then.” He stalked to the door and threw it open for her so hard it banged into the wall, sending powdered plaster floating into the air. “Run back to your aristocratic life and live in the lap of luxury. You’re obviously so enamored of the peerage, you belong with them. With all the others of your set; spoiled, overindulged, flighty, vapid little things. Be as useless as the rest of them. If you were expecting me to take up as the grandson of a duke one day, I regret to inform you, you couldn’t have been more wrong. I’dneverlower myself to the peerage.”
The tears blurring her eyes overflowed at last and slid hotly down her cheeks, but she didn’t stay to let him see how he’d crushed her. She’d fled the flat, run to the nearest corner and hired a hackney to take her to her grandmother’s house. She’d cried a thousand tears that night. That’s what Mark thought of her? That she was so obsessed with titles and money and thetonthat she’d pretended not to know he was the grandson of a duke in order to be related to the prestigious Colchester family? If that’s what he truly thought, hedidn’tknow her at all.
Her mother had attempted to comfort her. Her grandmother had tried to talk her into returning to him and begging his forgiveness. If they thought she would crawl back to that man, they didn’t know her either. None of them did.
Days later, she talked to Daffin. He’d already mentioned to her that his contacts in the War Office had been looking for a female spy. They needed someone in France who could operate at the highest levels of Society in Paris. He’d recommended her for the position. She’d turned it down because she wanted to stay with Mark. Daffin assured her the position was still hers if she wanted it, though he was baffled as to why she was so hell-bent to leave the country of a sudden.
Nicole never shared anything about her falling-out with Mark. Instead she spent the next fortnight securing the position at the War Office and preparing to leave for France. The entire time, she’d prayed Mark would come for her, send her a letter apologizing, something. He never did. She had left so he’d never think she’d wanted to stay in London and be a part of thetonthere.He’d believed that about her and he’d been completely wrong.
The only truth that had come out of that hideous night was the fact that they hadn’t ever truly known each other. He was right. They’d married in haste. They were incompatible. They were never meant to be together.
***
