He was aghast. First, he—who had exerted his will a thousand times in the past to stay awake all night to tend a patient in crisis, who had gone days in his boyhood without eating, who had spent his youth in Edinburgh hunched over books sixteen hours a day—had just carried out what he felt was the most self-denying act of his life so far. He had left the warm nest where Arabella lay. Where they had slept together. Where he hadcouriedinto her. Where so much else could have happened.
But he had restrained himself.
Then, for her to contradict him so vehemently, to talk so freely of having wanted to lose her innocence, to speak of seducing him, and now to be crying?
“Miss Lovelock.” He stepped toward her.
“No!” she screamed. “You cannot even give me that, can you? My own name. Not even that intimacy. You must hold me at arm’s length. You, with your damned stupid ideas about women!”
He had been cursed at by laboring mothers, sworn at by drunken men with bleeding heads, threatened by grief-crazed parents after the unavoidable death of a child, but he had never felt himself as reviled as he did now.
And he could not face that. He could not confront the tiny figure of rage in the room with him now.
He left his cravat undone and collected his waistcoat and tailcoat and walked out the door of the bedchamber.
Alasdair had no idea where the other wing of rooms was located and even if he did, he had no idea which might be his room. He tied his cravat, noticing that he had picked up the tartan scarf along with the rest of his clothes. He got his waistcoat on and the tailcoat over it and was walking down the hallway away from Arabella’s room, trying to button the waistcoat, when he almost bumped into the Marquess of Painswick.
“Dr. Andrews, do watch where you’re going,” the marquess said.
Alasdair bowed. “My apologies, Lord Painswick.”
“You are headed quite the wrong direction for breakfast, Dr. Andrews. Come with me. And after breakfast, I’ll arrange to have my valet shave you.”
“Thank ye, my lord.”
They had turned around and were walking back down the hallway, the other direction, back toward Arabella’s room, toward the main staircase. Alasdair held the tartan scarf in his hand.
The marquess raised his eyebrows as they passed Arabella’s room.
“Just a few minutes ago, I thought I heard a raised voice from this end of the hall. Was it your wife?”
“Uh, perhaps.” Alasdair pushed back the lock of hair that had fallen in front of his left eye.
“Wives are difficult creatures, aren’t they?” the marquess said as he started down the stairs. “So needing, really. It’s best to find something they like so they can be distracted. Then one can get some peace.”
“I cannae say.”
“Well, you’re newly married, aren’t you?” The marquess flashed a smile, one that seemed to show entirely too many teeth. He continued to go down the stairs. “The novelty of having an available tight quim that is legally obliged to open up for you has not yet lost its charm, I see. In the long run, though, wives turn out to be much more expensive than whores. But for producing heirs, one really has no other choice.”
Alasdair had stopped in his tracks and his fists were balled by his sides. He thought about using the scarf in his hand to strangle the marquess.
The marquess noticed then that Alasdair was not beside him and he paused his descent and turned and looked back up the stairs at him.
“Dr. Andrews, do not take offense. I speak in generalities, of course. And you should never pay attention to anything anyone says before they have breakfast. Including your wife.”
When Alasdair did not move and did not respond, the marquess sniffed, turned, and walked down the rest of the staircase. Alasdair stood for a long time, trying to decide whether to go down the stairs or back up to Arabella.
Ultimately, he decided that the marquess was a degenerate arsehole but that he had one thing right. Breakfast might improve the situation, and it certainly wouldn’t hurt. He folded the scarf and tucked it between the left side of his waistcoat and his shirt as he had yesterday, and he walked down the stairs and went in search of tea.
He could not brave Arabella’s rage even with his tartan armor over his heart. He was a coward, and he knew it.
She flung herself on the bed and kicked and punched and sobbed. He had seen her as she truly was. A screaming, lustful, undone chit. He would never bed her now. Let alone marry her.
And although she felt it was fair to blame her lust on her mother, she could not make her mother culpable of her rage. She had never seen her mother lose her temper except the one time. That ten seconds when her mother had dragged her out of Giles’ carriage. Even then, her mother had not shouted or yelled like Arabella had.
It had been Arabella who had screamed herself hoarse in grief and pain and, yes, fury at her betrayal by Giles.
By the time Rebecca’s lady’s maid entered the room along with a chambermaid bearing a breakfast tray, Arabella had dressed herself in her one dress, arranged her hair, made the bed, and was staring out the window at the swirling snow.
