“You’re welcome,” he retorted as the carriage began to move at a snail’s pace to account for the torrents of rain on the roof and road.
Mara swallowed a groan of despair.
At this rate, they’d be trapped together in close proximity for an hour or more!
“I was perfectly capable of walking.” The inside of the landau was dry, but her clothes were soaked through and becoming colder by the second. Instinctively seeking to warm herself, she hugged her knees to her chest, and didn’t that make for a sorry sight? The Duchess of Southwick, wet and bedraggled, while her indescribably awful husband lorded over her.
She hated that he was handsome.
Hated that he exuded power with every breath.
Hated that he could snap his fingers and people would do whatever he wanted.
But she especially hated that even now, even after their wretched wedding night and his subsequent abandonment, there was a piece of her that still quivered whenever she was near him. It always had, and she feared that it always would. For no matter how much she hated him, that traitorous piece of her loved him desperately. Like a splinter jammed under her nail that she couldn’t pry loose.
“You’re shivering,” he noted with a scowl, as if her discomfort was somehow a plague onhim. “Take my greatcoat.”
“No, I don’t want—fine,” she muttered below her breath when he ignored her refusal and, leaning forward, draped the heavy garment over her shoulders, enclosing her in his achingly familiar scent, a combination of cedarwood from his cologne water and a tangy hint of citrus from his shaving lather.
“Were you walking from your lover or to him?” he asked after he’d sat back, and beneath the oversized coat Mara flushed a deep, blotchy red from her temple all the way to her toes.
“You received my letter.” And why, why,whydid the post have to be quickthistime? She’d sent the letter with the hope that it would arrive in London right before she did in an effort to avoid this very scenario. But of course that would require luck, and while she had the bad variety in spades, she’d yet to find a pinch of good.
Ambrose slowly tapped his fingers on his thigh, not unlike a cat twitching its tail right before it pounced on an unsuspecting mouse. “I did. Tell me, dear wife, are you suffering from a disease or other sort of malady?”
“Disease?” she said, confused. “Why would you—”
“Have you fallen recently and struck your head?”
“No, I—”
“Then the only other explanation is lunacy.”
“Lunacy?” She clutched her damp skirts. “I’m not... I’m notinsane.”
He smiled that vague, empty, cold smile that never failed to send a shiver along her spine. “But you must be, to think that I’d willingly turn a blind eye to your infidelity.”
Having prepared herself for this conversation—albeit not this soon or in these circumstances—she was ready with a reply. “What do you care what I do, Ambrose? I said that I would be discreet, and I meant it! You needn’t have come all the way here. You haven’t before, and that’s the problem, isn’t it?” His coat slipped over her shoulders as she pitched to the edge of her seat. “You married me and then sent me away while you continued to enjoy all of your old pursuits. Carousing with women, drinking, gambling—”
“I’ve not slept with anyone since we said our vows,” he interrupted. “The rest, well...” His shoulders lifted in a carelessly brusque shrug. “Guilty as charged.”
“Am I truly meant to believe that?” she scoffed even as her heart gave a pitifully joyous flutter.
“Believe whatever you’d like. It matters naught.” His eyes narrowed. “Whatdoesmatter is your public pursuit of an affair. You’ve set tongues wagging from Derbyshire to Dublin. If you really planned to take a lover, Mara, you should have been more careful who you told.”
Indignation sparked in her breast. “I didn’ttellanyone, and Idoplan to—to go through with it!”
“You can stop the act,” he drawled, his tone infuriatingly dismissive. As if she were a child or a servant, and wasn’t that how he’d always treated her? Certainly never as his equal, and never as a wife. Not really. Not in any of the ways that mattered. “You got what you wanted. I’m here, and I’ll be remaining here until such time as we depart for London. We’ll go together to stave off the rumors, make a few appearances, and then you’ll unfortunately take ill and have to return to Southwick Castle for the remainder of the Season.”
Mara stared at him, disbelief shuttering her expression. “Is that... is that why you think I’m doing this? That this is all some elaborate scheme in an attempt to draw you out here?”
His mouth twisted in a smirk. “Why else?”
For company, she wanted to shout.For a man to look at me like I am someone special instead of a burden they have to endure. For laughter. For friendship. For the butterflies I used to get in my belly when you at least pretended that you cared.
“We’re here,” she said instead, and was out the door and hurrying up the front steps before the carriage had even come to a full stop.
*
