Thirty-two
“Not a word,” he saidwhen the carriage door clicked shut. The daggers she saw in his gaze cut her to the quick, the scathing look he threw her stifled her far more effectively than his words.
She had words of her own. How dare he accuse her of infidelity? How dare he compare her to Victoria!
The chill of his silence seeped into her heart. It seemed that as the miles between the carriage and Bellerive grew, so did the distance between her and Ethan. She wanted him to scream at her, lecture her, demand answers. She would scream right back.
Instead, with each bend in the road, a wall grew between them. It had always been there, she realized now, just camouflaged by climbing vines of ivy and sweet honeysuckle—her foolish hopes that he would come to love and trust her. It was an old wall but effective, raised from the pain of his past and supported by the bitterness of the years. Francesca now doubted she would ever breach it.
He would never trust her. This would never be a true marriage.
She stared out the window when they turned onto the drive for Winterbourne Hall. With menace, the house and grounds closed in on her. She imagined the gazebo to be a hunched, brooding ogre and the castle ruins as jagged claws rising from the ground. The house, when they finally reached it, was a ghostly phantom projecting garish, flickering light.
The carriage halted and, though she wore gloves, she could feel that Ethan’s hands were icy when he took hers to assist her from the coach. Before her feet were firmly on the ground, he thrust her away and started for the house. She followed him, listening as his steps echoed on the hard marble of the gallery and staircase, as hollow as she felt inside. Accompanied by a footman, they reached her room first, and Ethan paused to give her a frozen kiss on the cheek. “Good night, madam.”
She winced, his formality another slap in her face.
“Good night,” she finally managed and then only because the footman was still standing behind him holding the lamp.
With a stiffness she’d never seen, Ethan turned, opened the door to his bedroom, and disappeared inside. Francesca watched as the sliver of lamplight dimmed until it was extinguished, and the door shut behind him.
“Is there anything you require, your ladyship?” The footman’s voice in the oppressive silence startled her.
Francesca realized she stood motionless in front of her bedroom door, her hand on the knob. “No, Daniel. Thank you for asking.”
She turned the knob and entered the empty room.
She rarely called on her maid to help her prepare for bed anymore, but tonight there was no Ethan sprawled on her sheets with a wicked grin. No reason for Helen not to assist her. Perhaps there would never be a reason again.
She shut the door and leaned against the frame with all the weight of her pain. She felt heavy with an aching that grew in size until she could hardly bear its burden. Looking around the room, she saw that a fire had been lit in the white marble hearth and several lamps were burning, awaiting her arrival, but the chamber seemed colder and darker than she remembered it.
The refurbishment, so pristine white, made her shiver. Frosty and foreboding, the room lacked warmth and passion. Without Ethan, the chamber felt so bare, so empty. With a sinking feeling, Francesca realized it might never again seem vibrant and alive to her. All that was life to her now, all that mattered, was in the room next door.
Her gaze traveled from the low fire in the fireplace to the door that adjoined her room to Ethan’s. Strange, she thought, dragging her feet and all the heaviness of her sorrow forward, but she’d never had more than a passing glance inside Ethan’s room. They’d never spent so much as one night there. It had seemed natural that they share her room. Knowing that Ethan had it redecorated for her made it and the time they spent there together, making love under the white satin bed curtains, special.
But now she stared at the shared door and wondered. Had he been shutting her out in little ways even before this incident at the Nitterling’s? Had keeping her from his room been a way of shutting her out? Had he been taking precautions in case he found that, in the end, she was not so different from Victoria?
On the other side of the door, silence reigned. She laid her hand on the polished white paneling, smooth and cold under her fingers as she curled them into a fist. Ethan had never trusted her, she realized now. He’d been waiting for something like the incident with Templeton to happen. He’d reacted tonight almost as if he’d expected it. He hadn’t even wanted her explanations.
Not that they would have matteredhadhe listened. She might convince Ethan that she had been looking for him tonight, that she had asked Templeton to take her to her husband, and that she had been offended and angry when the man led her to the remote print room and tried to kiss her. Ethan might even believe she hadn’t wanted or encouraged Templeton’s advances. But it wouldn’t matter. He would simply wait until next time because Ethan was certain therewouldbe a next time.
He was waiting for her to betray him as Victoria had. She ground her teeth together, furious. She wouldn’t allow him to do that—to sit in his private sanctuary and bide his time until she turned traitor. How dare he refuse to give their marriage even a chance? He owed her that much: a chance.
She threw the door open and plunged through Ethan’s dressing room, her gaze fixed on the bedroom door. Fury bubbled inside her, threatening to erupt, as she shoved his door open.
Across the room, Ethan sat slumped in his chair, drink in hand, staring at the fire. His head shot up when the door banged open. “Go back to your room, Francesca.”
She huffed, curling her lip in contempt. The rich, burgundy carpet gave sensuously under her green slippers as she stepped into his sanctuary—his sanctuary from her, she reminded herself, looking around.
“So this is your room.” She gestured needlessly with one hand.
“Precisely. It’smyroom.” Setting down his drink, he stood.
She wondered if his dishevelment—coat thrown on the floor, cravat dangling sloppily, shirt hanging open—was any indication that he was as tormented by this division between them as she.
“Go back toyourroom, Francesca.”
