“I said that I’m fine, Mara.And this...” His gaze hardened as it swept across the mattress. “This is finished.” Finding and yanking on his trousers (backward, but she wasn’t about to correct him), he left his own bedchamber, slamming the door in his wake.
*
“Might we havea moment to speak?” Stepping nervously into her husband’s study, Mara kept her eyes on the crackling fire in the hearth and away from the man sitting silently behind an enormous mahogany desk. “Mr. Humphrey said that you were available.”
“Did he,” Ambrose murmured, his flat tone giving her no indication of what emotions swirled behind his blank countenance. Outside, heavy sheets of rain fell from a gray, moody sky. But the dour weather was practically a tropical paradise when compared to the temperature in the study. Despite the hearty fire, a noticeable chill had settled in the air the instant Mara had entered the masculine sanctuary, causing her tongue to stick to the roof of her mouth and gooseflesh to prickle across her arms. “It appears I’ll need to have a word with my butler on his definition of ‘available.’”
“Don’t be cross with him.” At last, she dared to look at Ambrose, and her heart sank at what she saw sitting behind the desk.
Or rather,whomshe saw.
A stranger.
A stranger in somber black, with piercing blue eyes that stood out in stark contrast from a curtain of gloomy shadow. He put down the quill pen he’d been writing with when she’d entered and rested his elbows on the desk, his gaze cool and unwavering above interlocked fingers.
“How can I help you, Mara?”
How can I help you, Mara.Hardly the words a brand-new bride wanted to hear. Not from her husband, at any rate.
Surely he was meant to give her a compliment (how fetching you look in the morning), or tell her how much he’d missed her (how I’ve missed you), or how in love with her he was (you’re the stars to my moon). Instead, all she’d received was a brusque, detached, businesslike query. She was fairly certain her maid had asked her exactly the same thing an hour ago.
“I... I wanted to talk,” she began. “About last night.”
A muscle ticked in Ambrose’s jaw. “What about last night?”
“It...”Was terrible. Awful. Calamitous.“It did not go as anticipated. I wanted to apologize. For... for striking you. It wasn’t my intention.”
“You’re forgiven. If there’s nothing else—”
“We can try again,” she blurted.
She could tell that she’d caught him off guard by the lift of his brows.
Good, she thought, a little viciously. She wanted him off guard. She wanted him as far away from this cool, composed statue of granite as she could get.
“That won’t be possible.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs; a deliberate attempt to intimidate that he’d likely used on dozens of opponents. But she wasn’t an opponent. She was hiswife. Why couldn’t he see that?
“Why not?” she asked, summoning every ounce of courage in her possession. It wasn’t an easy thing under the best of circumstances to question Ambrose, and these were hardly the best of circumstances. Come to think of it, she was hard pressed to imagine worse circumstances than a wedding night that had ended with the groom on the floor and the bride still a virgin.
“Because you’re leaving. Today. For Southwick Castle.”
“Leaving?” Now it was her brows that rose. “Today? No, that’s not right. We’d planned to remain here, in London, for our honeymoon.”
They’d already discussed it. She had a list written down of all the things they were going to do. Another visit to Kensington Gardens, a boat ride on the Serpentine, a private tour of the Royal Menagerie.
“Plans have changed.”
“But... but I have a list,” she said stupidly.
“And I have work to do. I’ll call on you when it’s finished.”
Her lips parted in dismay. “You’re not coming with me?”
“No, Mara. I am not going with you.”
She considered begging, but she had pride left. Not much, but enough to graciously nod, and curtsy, and walk out of the study and all the way up to her room before she burst into tears.
Chapter Fourteen
