He looked over his shoulder. She’d followed him a handful of steps and hovered in the center of the room. Her arms where wrapped protectively around her body, embracing her own self. He wanted to hold her. He wanted to dry her cheeks of tears.
Tonight was meant to be the night when finally he could touch her, all of her. Tonight was meant to be the first of thousands of such nights. Now? Now he could not say what tomorrow night or any of a thousand future nights meant for either of them. A fresh wave of vengeful words rose in his mind, and he seized them.
“I’ve no ideawhoyou are,” he said and turned back to the window.
The night was damp, and he saw his breath in billowy puffs. He closed his eyes, trying to determine what in the bloody hell he was supposed to do now.
Their original plan had been for him to settle her in London next week and then sail to the Caribbean to join his partners for ten months, perhaps a year, making a go of an expedition that had the potential to make them all very rich.
For weeks, he and Tessa had bemoaned the impending separation—how they would miss each other—but she had been playacting all along. A ten-month absence was ideal for a woman with a nine-month secret—yet another reason, he realized, seeing it all so clearly now, she’d set her sights on him. She could swell into pregnancy, have the baby, and present it to him as his own when he returned. The passing of months and exact dates of their wedding would be vague and unimportant by the time the baby was born. Her plan was brilliant, really.
“Would you mind closing the window?” she asked quietly behind him. “Joseph? I’m cold.”
Yes,he thought,you are cold. He rolled his eyes at his own dramatics. His new wife had revealed herself to be a great many things, but was she truly “cold”? In calculation or demeanor? She was a pregnant woman, desperate, and she’d done what she had to do for her own future and the future of her unborn child. She’d lied as long as she could, and then she had stopped lying. Now, she looked to him to sort out what they would do and how they would carry on. These were hardly the conditions he envisioned for the beginning of his marriage (in general) or his wedding night (in particular), but hadn’t his entire life been one, long, unending heap of obstacles to be sorted? Why should his marriage be any different?
He locked the window and turned to her, leaning against the sill. “Tell me one thing. Do you still love him?”
“Who?” she asked, and she looked genuinely confused.
“The father of this baby,” he ground out.
The look of horror on her face came on so quickly and was so distinctly repulsed, he thought for a moment she might be sick.
“No,” she said, spitting out the word like poison. “No. Nor did I ever.” She put a dainty hand to her slim throat, as if she choked on the man’s very memory.
A dalliance then, Joseph thought, feeling the burn of jealousy, but he did not press her. Obviously, the topic distressed her. He was behaving like an arse, but he was not a masochist.
He dropped his head in his hands. “Why did you not simply tell me from the start, Tessa?” He looked up at her. “Say to me, ‘I’m in a bad way. Will you help?’ Why pretend to be so... taken with me?”
She nodded to this, whether to indicate she understood the question or to agree, he did not know. After a moment, she said, “My experience with revealing the pregnancy has not been... agreeable.”
Joseph swore. “Who did you endeavor to marry before me?”
“No one! I told only the father of the baby, and his reaction was...” She trailed off.
“Butme, Tessa?” He crossed to her. “Did I seem so horrible that you could not tellme? For the days and weeks we have been together?”
“You have been horrible tonight,” she whispered. “Tonight you have proved my point.”
He chuckled. “Yes, I suppose I have.”
He ambled away from the window and came to a stop in front of her. She took two steps back. Joseph swore again.
Just this morning, they’d used any excuse to reach out and touch. Fingertips, shoulders, the rare and precious embrace. And now...
“Not that your reaction isn’t... warranted,” she said. “And you have been far less horrible than... than the other.”
“Never let it be said that I am equal in horribleness to a man who would destitute a pregnant woman.”
To this, she had no answer. She stared up at him. Her eyes were huge and solemn, a dark blue he’d never seen. The authentic blue of the authentic woman. Finally.
After a moment, she repeated her urgent question in a whisper. “Will you annul the marriage?”
The most important thing. She would debate motive all night long. She would apologize. She would endure his outrage. But what she really wanted was to knowthis.
“Am I horrible enough to annul the marriage to a woman who I do not know? At all?”
“I am not so unknown to you as you think,” she whispered, closing her eyes.
