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She pressed a hand to her waist. Dominic knew that gesture; Torie’s stomach was churning with the strength of her feelings.

“You don’t want to consummate our marriage?” he demanded, incredulous.

“I will never share my husband with another woman,” Torie stated, her eyes glittering at him. “You scarcely envision me as a wife anyway. Face it: in your mind, I’m a glorified nursemaid, albeit with some extracurricular capering. Except that now I understand that you have other bedrooms to caper in.”

“I do not think of your role in my life that way!”

Her lip curled. “As your wife, I am supposed to make no demands and set down no rules. We might occasionally entertain, but the invitations would come from you, and the arrangements needn’t strain my pitiful brain. You’ll be out most nights, so I should feel free to ‘join the children in the nursery,’ which implies you think that I will be humbly waiting at home for you.” She laughed.

Her hand slipped away from her stomach: not calm, but better.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Dominic said, trying to remember precisely what he’d said.

“Yes, you did. Really, you must stop denying statements for which there’s so much evidence,” she retorted. “I don’t blame you. You find me addled, but you’re fond of me, and protective too. I learned long ago to separate people’s motives and their assessments.”

“You are completely misunderstanding my opinion of you.”

“My point is that you have declared over and over that you don’t want me to be ashamed. You insisted my own sister couldn’t attend the wedding in case she said something slighting to me. And yet you arranged it so that the entire congregation of the cathedral—every single person—will be tittering about your relationship with Gianna while you vow, supposedly, to be faithful to me. That was worse than anything my sister could have said!”

Dominic wanted to thunder a denial—but he was the one in the wrong. He didn’t have the moral high ground the way he did in the House of Lords.

“You shamed me just before we are to marry,” Torie said, her voice breaking. “That says to me that your relationship with Gianna is stronger than ours.” Her eyes were shining with tears. “It says that your fondness for me is as shallow as a puddle.”

“That isn’t true,” Dominic said hoarsely, feeling as if he were drowning. “I do care for you, and I am deeply regretful of my thoughtless behavior last night.” He took her ringless hand in his, hoping that it wasn’t a sign. “Please believe that I had no intention of disrespecting you. I didn’t think of the consequences, or I would never have agreed to go to Vauxhall.”

Her eyes searched his face, and to his relief, they softened. “People thought you were deliberately humiliating me, but I hated to believe it.”

“I would never do that,” he growled.

“You are too fond of me to be so cruel. I told Clara that.”

The words stabbed him. “I apologize.”

He was solidly on the wrong side of the moral fence, and it felt—horrible. “My only excuse is that I didn’t think about gossip. Or reporters. The opinions of ladylike matrons are meaningless to me. They don’t matter.”

“My feelings matter to me,” Torie said, her hand going back to her stomach.

“Of course,” he said raggedly. He’d done it again, said the wrong thing. Defended the indefensible. “I didn’t mean that.”

“At least we’re being honest with each other now, more than we ever were before.” Her voice had a jaundiced undertone that he hated. “I suspect that your relationship with Gianna is the longest and deepest you have had in your life.”

Dominic’s lifelong dedication to honesty stifled his response. She wasn’t wrong. He and Gianna went back years.

He had never made male friends the way other gentlemen did. His father had been a beast and kept him away from boys his own age. His sister had flitted here and there, unable to stay in one place. They’d had no real bond.

When he couldn’t bring himself to lie, Torie said heavily, “I do know that you have been together for more years than I’ve known you. I always thought men liked variety in the bedchamber, but you have been faithful to her, presumably.”

“Yes.”

His father’s commands were clashing with the disdainful expression in Torie’s eyes. Her ultimatum was unacceptable. Giving in would be shaming.

But then, he had shamed her . . . His mind went into a dizzying spiral, trying to calculate the best option, the argument that would satisfy her and preserve his integrity.

“Since you’re referring to your mistress, I shall not congratulate you for your fidelity,” Torie said with devastating frankness.

“I am not yet married,” Dominic said, his father’s barking voice echoing in his head so strongly that he fancied it could be heard in the room.

“As of tomorrow, your relationship, if one can call it that, will become adulterous,” she retorted. “Vows are vows. I’ve never heard a proviso in the Anglican marriage ceremony excusing paid intimacies, have you? ‘With my body I thee worship’ doesn’t have the addendum, ‘except when I’m worshipping someone else’s body.’”