Page 51 of The Luckiest Lady in London

“I am not following you around the house,” she said, a little defensively, once they were out of earshot of those still in the billiard room. “I only wish for a minute of your time.”

“And you are, of course, entitled to that,” he said politely. “Shall we go to my sitting room?”

He was making her nervous, and not in a pleasurable way. Instead, she felt like the insolvent young woman she had been until very recently, attempting to persuade a shopkeeper to extend her more credit.

She preceded him into his apartment. A moment later a light came on, then another. She blinked, looking about, not sure what she was seeing.

The decor was not English, nor exactly what she thought of as the French style. His apartment was an ecstasy of pastels—white, gold, and sky blue. She almost could not imagine how exuberant it would appear during the day, with sunlight streaming in through the windows.

The plaster medallions on the wall, the fresco paintings of pastoral idylls, a ceiling that was the brightest, cleanest sky, with birds in flight and even a hot-air balloon.

What the inside of a fairy-tale castle looked like, more or less.

“It’s beautiful. It’s…”

“Rococo is the word you are looking for, I believe.”

“Yes, I suppose.” She had no idea what the word meant, except to know that it was the last thing she’d have extrapolated from his otherwise clean, spare style.

She liked this rococo interior. It was luminous and joyful. But instead of uplifting her mood, it only made her feel more apprehensive. What else didn’t she know about him?

“I would ring for some tea, but the staff has already retired for the night,” he said, quite formally.

“Thank you, but I don’t need any tea.”

“In that case, what can I do for you?”

She bit the inside of her lower lip. “Perhaps you can explain why you are no longer my lover.”

“Am I not?”

“You haven’t touched me in two days.”

“And forty-eight hours is enough to disqualify me?”

“We are on our honeymoon. And you have given me every expectation that I may expect an attentive and frequent lover.”

“You might be recalling things I’d said when I had you in mind as a mistress, whom I might see as little as twenty days out of the year. Marriage is something else altogether.”

“Yet I am confident you said to me, on our wedding night, that you would—that you wanted to—fuck me every hour of every day.”

The inside of her mouth felt as if it were on fire. The word was incredibly vulgar, yet strangely potent and muscular.

His eyes narrowed, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. Then he leaned forward a little, his manner almost conspiratorial. “Let me tell you something, my dear: You should never believe what a man says when he is fucking you.”

Now it was the inside of her chest that burned. “If I cannot trust you even in bed, then where can I trust you?”

“I am disappointed. I thought you prudent enough to never trust me anywhere, at any time.”

She was just as disappointed in herself, but there was a small part of her that still couldn’t quite believe that all her worst suspicions were coming true. That the marriage she’d thought might prove to be ultimately heartbreaking was breaking her heart this moment.

“I should have had it written into the marriage settlement—how often I must be made love to,” she said, trying to sound flippant.

He said nothing. She had the sense that he was already waiting for her to leave.

Her heart clenched. Was this it? Was her loss to be so abrupt and unceremonious? And would she accept this banishment so meekly, with barely a murmur of protest?

She took a step toward him. He regarded her with an impatient condescension, the grand aristocrat who found the country bumpkin a terrible bore. But she couldn’t quite comprehend this new reality yet. When she looked at him, she still saw the man who had gone to great lengths with the dress dummies to make her laugh—and only that man.