Setting her jaw, she blindly plucked a book from the shelf and flipped to the first page but the tiny rows of text blurred through a sheen of tears. With a small, self-pitying sniffle, she started to put the book back, only to freeze with her arm in midair when she heard a loud, suddenbang.
Mice,she told herself.It’s just the mice.
But since when did mice open doors that creaked or wear big boots that clomped?
“Bartholomew?” she called nervously, clutching the book to her chest like a shield as she whirled to face the door. “That’s you, isn’t it?”
Clomp.
Clomp.
Clomp.
Lavinia held her breath.
The door to the drawing room slowly began to open.
Her mind conjured a towering mouse with whiskers as long as her legs and sharp, glinty teeth.
“GO AWAY!” she shrieked, throwing the book across the room with all her might.
“Oomph,” the mouse grunted when the heavy tome glanced off the side of its head and landed on the floor. The oversized rodent staggered sideways, holding its cheek. Lavinia looked wildly around for another weapon to throw. Her gaze landed on a bronze statue of a hunting dog on the mantle.
“I’m warning you.” She hefted the heavy sculpture over her shoulder. “There’s no cheese in here. Leave while you still can!”
“Put that damned thing down before you hurt yourself,” a deep, unmistakably familiar voice growled from the shadows. Still cupping his jaw, which was already sporting a blackening bruise, the Earl of Wilshire stepped into the ring of light cast by the fire and Lavinia’s eyes went huge.
“N-Nicholas?” she said faintly.
“Who the devil did you think it was?” her husband scowled.
A giant six foot mouse hunting for cheese.
“I…I wasn’t sure.” A muscle pinged in her arm, reminding her that she was still holding the bronze dog. Returning it to the mantle, she turned to stare in astonishment at the last person she’d ever expected to see. “What…what are you doing here?”
“What amIdoing here?” Nicholas’s black greatcoat was covered in snow. More of it was in his hair, glinting like miniscule diamonds in the firelight. His nose and cheeks, save the spot where she’d accidentally hit him with the book, were bright red from the cold and his hands, devoid of gloves, were of a similar color, the knuckles slightly swollen. “What the hell areyoudoing here?”
Thrust and parry.
Parry and thrust.
It seemed that was all they did.
All they knewhowto do when they weren’t ignoring each other.
“I told you I was coming here.” A few minutes ago, she’d wondered how she was ever going to fall asleep in this too-quiet place. Now, she felt weary all the way down to her bones. “I waited for you, Nicholas.”
“I had a meeting.”
“Youalwayshave a meeting.”
“That’s because I work, Lavinia.” A tendon pulsed in his jaw as he removed his coat and laid it over the back of a chair. In the fireplace, a log shifted and sparks flew, but this time Lavinia didn’t flinch. “I have a responsibility to the companies I’ve started and to the employees depending on me.”
“What about your responsibility to yourwife?” she cried, flinging her arms out the side. “Your responsibility to ourmarriage?”
“Have I not provided?” he shot back. “Have I not given you everything that you’ve ever wanted? Let’s not forget that your dowry was a piddling sum, and my father squandered away most of my inheritance on cards and brandy. Were it not for my meetings that you so detest, and the contracts that you abhor, we’d be having a very different conversation. I provide for us, Lavinia.”
“Yes,” she agreed, because it was true. “Yes, you do. You have. And I’m grateful for it. For your knack with numbers. For your business sense. For your ability to take a failing company and turn it into an empire. But when is it enough, Nicholas?” Her hands dropped, nails digging into the flesh of her palms. “I don’t have your head for ledgers, but I can tally a simple sum. I’ve an idea of the fortunes you’ve built, and we couldn’t spend what you’ve made if we had a dozen lifetimes. Ahundredlifetimes. So when is it enough? I have what I want, Nicholas. The clothes. The houses. The servants. The jewels. But what about what I need?”
