“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” she admitted. “He keeps so many secrets, avoids so many questions. Sometimes I feel like I’m living with a stranger.”
“Then perhaps it’s time to stop accepting secrets and start demanding answers.”
The suggestion was simple but implementing it would require courage Iris wasn’t certain she possessed. Because demanding answers meant risking truths that might shatter what little happiness she’d managed to build.
As they neared the townhouse and Evie slept peacefully in Grace’s arms, Iris wondered if ignorance might be kinder than knowledge. But watching her friend’s natural ease with the baby,seeing how right it looked, she realized the question wasn’t whether she could handle the truth.
The question was whether she could continue living without it.
Owen heard the front door close behind him with a finality that seemed to echo through the empty townhouse. The clock in the entrance hall chimed half past midnight. The sound was unnaturally loud in the stillness. He’d expected to find the house dark, the servants retired, and his family long asleep.
Instead, he found Iris waiting for him in the drawing room.
She sat in the wingback chair by the dying fire, still dressed in her evening gown from hours ago. The blue silk had creased from sitting, and her hair was a little mussed, indicating that she had run restless fingers through it. But her eyes were alert and focused on him with an intensity that made his chest tighten.
“You waited up,” he said while setting his hat and gloves on the side table.
“We need to talk.”
The words carried a weight that suggested this conversation had been building for days, perhaps weeks. Owen moved to the brandy decanter and poured himself a measure with hands that weren’t quite steady.
“It’s late, Iris. Perhaps tomorrow?—”
“No.” She rose from her chair. The movement was sharp with suppressed anger. “Not tomorrow. Not next week. Now.”
He turned to face her, noting the way she held herself like a woman preparing for battle. “Very well. What’s troubling you?”
“What’s troubling me?” She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Where have you been, Owen? Tonight, last night, the dozen nights before that. Where do you disappear to when the sun sets?”
“Business meetings. I’ve told you?—”
“You’ve told me nothing.” Her voice rose slightly before she caught herself and glanced toward the door. “You offer vague excuses and expect me to accept them without question. But I’m not a child to be placated with half-truths.”
Owen set down his untouched brandy. “What exactly are you accusing me of?”
“I’m not accusing. I’m asking. Directly, honestly, for once in this marriage.” She stepped closer, and he could see the hurt she’d been hiding behind her composure. “If you have a mistress, just say so. Don’t insult me by pretending these mysterious appointments are anything else.”
- The accusation left him feeling wounded. After all this time, she was still reading him wrong. “A mistress?”
“What else am I to think? You leave before dawn, return after midnight, and offer no explanations. You avoid meals, dodge questions, and treat me like a stranger in my own home.” Her voice cracked slightly. “If there’s someone else, someone who gives you what I apparently cannot, then have the courage to tell me.”
“You think I’m unfaithful to you?” The words came out rough with disbelief and something akin to hurt.
“I think you’re keeping secrets. Big ones. And in my experience, when husbands keep secrets from their wives, it usually involves other women.”
“You’re being presumptuous.”
“Am I? Then explain. Make me understand why my husband can’t bear to be in the same house as me for more than a few hours at a time.”
Owen rubbed a hand over his face. The search for Adele, the careful lies, and the distance he’d maintained to protect them both—it was all crumbling under the force of her questions.
“It’s not what you think.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Everything’s complicated with you.” She moved even closer, close enough that he could smell her perfume beneath the faint scent of baby powder that seemed to cling to her these days. “I’m tired of complications. Tired of being shut out of my own marriage.”
