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“I don’t care,” Stella cried, dashing away tears that insisted on falling. “You’d think I’d be used to being second choice, but I’m not. I looked at you snuggled on the couch beside Yasmin, and I felt so angry I couldn’t even breathe.”

“I was not—”

She took a deep breath. The bleak feeling in her gut? She had to live with it. Get through it. But she couldn’t stop herself. “You forced me to marry you, even though I warned you that you might feel differently after Yasmin returned to London.”

“I don’t feel differently!”

Her words tumbled out. “Well, I do! I realized in the carriage that marrying you took away my chance to find a man who loves me that much. There might have been a man out there who would think I was enough. I could have been his first choice. But now I’ll never know, will I?” Her voice broke.

Silvester had an appalled expression.

Of course, he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. He was an innate gentleman, even when overcome by reverence for another woman.

“I do think you’re enough. More than enough.”

Lovely. Just what every woman wanted to hear from her husband.

“I’m talking about a man who would choose me first,” Stella said, choking out the words. “I’m not sure I can forgive you for that. Even if I had ended up an old maid, the way my aunt feared, I would have known that I had held out for the best.”

“You’d rather be an old maid than married to me?” His voice was thick with emotion. Disbelief, maybe.

Silvester clearly couldn’t believe that every woman wouldn’t choose to marry him. Another swell of anger rose in her chest at his arrogance. “Of course I wouldn’t. But you . . . you took that from me too, didn’t you?”

“Took what from you?”

“The love I would have given that man!”

“The hell you’ll give love to any other man,” Silvester said, his voice dropping as he stepped toward her. “You’re mine, Stella. I don’t give a fig for Yasmin. Nothing. And I never did.”

“Hogwash!” Stella retorted, glaring at him. “What about that telling bit of cruelty, when you told me of Yasmin’s lovely smile?” She felt her heart crack again, saying the words. She buried her face in Specs’s fur, another sob rising in her throat. “All I wanted was a cottage next to a bookstore. I never wanted to be a duchess.”

“What you’re saying is that you never wanted me as a husband.” Silvester walked a few steps to a chair and dropped into it with an audible thud. “You wanted a cottage?”

“Next to a bookstore,” Stella said, her voice thick. Tears shone on Specs’s white fur. She knew Silvester wouldn’t like what she was saying, but she said it anyway. “If I did marry, it would have been to someone who put me first, not like my aunt. And to be blunt, not like you either.”

“I do put you first.” He sprang forward and wrapped his arms around her, sitting back down on the bed. Specs gave an irritated meow and jumped to the floor.

Stella turned her face into his chest, her body shaking with sobs. He smelled so good, so much like the man she loved. The man she adored.

She loved his wry smile as much as he loved Yasmin’s luminous one, a truth that bit into her heart. Part of her wanted to cry out that she hated to quarrel. To pretend that he didn’t hurt her, because did it matter? It didn’t. They were married.

“I didn’t know what love was when I was courting her,” Silvester said hoarsely. “My feeling was no deeper than the icing on a cake, and just as treacle-sweet.”

That was all very well—but by running to Yasmin’s side, he told all of London just how shallow his feelings were for his wife. Thinner than icing, apparently.

Stella curled more tightly against his chest. A night breeze swept through the room, bringing with it the sleepy chirps of London sparrows.

“My so-called love was made up of flirtatious glances and shared laughter,” Silvester said. “The truth is that a good deal of my so-called emotion sprang from the way other men looked at her, especially Giles.”

“It was a competition,” Stella said shakily. “I understand.” She did understand. Her husband could not resist a contest.

“Then you also know that I wasn’t truly in love with her.”

He had thought he was, and wasn’t that what mattered? She didn’t answer.

“You can’t have it both ways, Stella. Either I wanted to win a competition for Yasmin’s hand or I was genuinely, desperately in love with her. Do you truly believe the latter?”

“Yes.”