The Sinner (17 page)

Charlotte made to follow Diane. “Sophia, I hope that you will never receive Lady Dalry again. There was deliberate cruelty on her part tonight.”

“Or total ignorance. She may not have known that Fleur would recognize the earrings.”

“Possibly. One person did know, however, and when I am done with him—”

“Please do not,” Fleur managed to say. “I have made enough of a shambles of the night. Do not accuse Dante of anything, or blame him. It isn’t his fault at all.”

Charlotte patted her face. “You let Sophia take you home now. I will visit in the morning and speak to Dante then. Tonight he is completely safe from me.”

“You black-hearted scoundrel.”

Charlotte hissed the insult as soon as she pulled Dante out of the ballroom and backed him into a private, dark corner.

“You thoughtless, conceited, cruel man. How
could
you? You knew what this night meant. How could you be so stupid when—”

“That is enough, Charl.” He was in no mood to have insults hurled at him.

His humor had not improved since putting Fleur in the carriage this morning. If anything, the hours had darkened it more. He had barely maintained civility at this ball, because his head swam with hard questions and infuriating answers.

At some point he had recognized this primitive anger for what it was. He was jealous. Of Siddel, and whatever secret relationship the man enjoyed with Fleur. Speculations on what that relationship might be had occupied most of the day.

Fleur’s furtive following of Siddel encouraged a conclusion that made his head split—that Colin Burchard had gotten it backward, and
she
was a spurned lover who kept grasping for the man she had lost and who refused other men because of her love. Only his conviction that Siddel would have grabbed Fleur’s fortune if offered it kept him even partly sane.

Now, to finish off a day that had started badly and then gotten worse, he was suddenly the object of curiosity and sympathy. From what he could tell from the buzzing gossip, Fleur had just created a disaster. When Charl had found him he had been trying to figure out how to limit the damage.

“It is
not
enough, and there is plenty more,” Charl snapped. “Do you know what has happened?”

“I overheard the story, so I have a good idea of how it will be remembered tomorrow. My wife abruptly lost control of her emotions at the banquet, had to be carried away, wept hysterically in the withdrawing room, and eventually had to be spirited from the ball by the Duchess of Everdon before anyone else could hear her ravings. And, to hear of it, there was absolutely no reason for this display except her unstable constitution.”

“Oh, heavens, that is all much exaggerated. By tomorrow the gossiping fools will be saying that she tried to drink poison.”

“Yes. Farthingstone should be delighted.”

Charlotte stepped closer, hands on her hips. “It was not for no reason, you wretched excuse for a husband. She saw the earrings.”

“What do you mean?”

“The amethyst earrings that I had her bring you in gaol. She saw them on the baroness.”

“Are you saying that Fleur caused a scene because she was jealous?”

“She did not cause a scene. She behaved magnificently, considering that she was devastated. The worst part is that she blames herself and not you.”

Of course she didn’t blame him.
She didn’t dare.
If he had resumed his affair with the baroness, she could not object.

Except that the baroness was not his lover, which made the entire drama ridiculously ironic. Almost as ironic as the fact that
he
had caught
her
secretly meeting with a man this morning.

He would laugh except that a scathing fury filled his head.

Charlotte noticed. “You are angry with her.”

“Damn right.”

“Perhaps you think that she should be sophisticated about this. She has been out of society for some time, however, and it may take her a while to reaccustom herself to the casual infidelities expected of husbands.”

He was tempted to explain the whole impossible predicament to Charl and exonerate himself. She was not the woman he needed to have it out with, however.

“If you want to insult me further, you will have to call tomorrow. I will leave now and attend to my wife.”

chapter
17

F
leur lay in the dark, as miserable as she ever remembered being. The images of Dante and the baroness had been joined by others. She kept seeing how she had made a fool of herself tonight.

She thought of Charlotte confronting Dante in the morning. She would have to rise very early herself and go to Charlotte and beg her to say nothing to Dante about the reason for tonight’s behavior. Better if everyone concluded she was unstable and strange than anyone learned the truth, especially Dante.

Because she was awake, she heard the rapping that began on the door. It was loud and sharp enough, however, that it would have probably woken her even if she were asleep.

She sat up in bed and reached for her pink robe. The sound was not on the corridor door but on the little one that separated her chambers from Dante’s.

She tiptoed through the dark to her dressing room. The raps sounded with a staccato demand.

The knocks stopped as she stood there, holding her breath. It appeared he had given up.

“Open the door, Fleur, unless you want me doing this in the corridor where all the servants will learn of it.” His voice came low and tight, as if he knew she was standing on the other side of the wall and could hear him.

She turned the little key. The handle moved and the door swung toward her.

Dante stood there, with one arm raised and resting on the jamb. He had removed his coats, collar, and cravat, and his white shirt glowed in the light thrown from a brace of candles on the washstand.

There was absolutely nothing of the carefree, good-humored wastrel in his face or body.

“You are recovered?”

She nodded. “I am very tired, however.”

“I am sure you are. However, I need to impose on your time for a while.” He stepped into her dressing room. The light from the candles illuminated enough of his expression to show that he was angry.

He reached around the door and extracted the key. “I have grown to hate this door. I erred in insisting you lock it. It was one of several mistakes I have made with you.” He threw the key back to his chamber and it clattered into the washbowl. “I do not ever want it locked again.”

She did not know what to do or say. They just stood there in the dressing room, facing each other through the shadows.

“That robe does not look at all attractive without the moonlight in a garden. I told you to buy some prettier things.”

“It seemed unnecessary, since I am asleep when you return home.”

“You have taken great care to make sure of that. However, despite your efforts, here we are.” He gestured to the wardrobes. “You wore something else that night in Durham. Where is it?”

“I do not think—”

“Put it on, Fleur.”

She went to a wardrobe and removed the nightdress and boudoir robe.

He was beside her suddenly, a dark, male presence in the night. His hands began to unbutton the blue dots on the robe.

She pictured him doing that with the baroness and wanted to weep again. “I do not need your help.”

“I choose to help. Do not object, Fleur. This is not the night to remind me of what you think we should not share.”

He barely touched her as he peeled the robe away. His fingertips hardly grazed her skin as he untied the bed dress and slid it down. He might have deliberately caressed her naked body, however. Undressing her proclaimed a right just as intimate.

She reached for the bed gown, but his hand closed on her wrist, stopping her. She froze like that, arm outstretched, with him much too close.

She did not look at him, but she felt him looking at her. Very little light entered the dressing room, but enough did for him to see her nakedness.

“Let me put on my bed gown, Dante.”

He pulled off her cap so her hair fell.

“Dante—”

“Not yet. It gives me pleasure to look at you.”

She closed her eyes and suffered it. Despite her humiliation, a slow excitement beat like a pulse. That rhythm was in the air, coming from him, being carried into her, stimulating her body.

“I should insist you stay like this,” he said. “I should make you come into the light and look at you for hours. I have damn few rights in this marriage, but this is one I did not bargain away.”

“You are being cruel.”

“Are you in pain? Am I hurting you?”

“I am embarrassed.”

He released her wrist but cupped her chin instead. “You are not only embarrassed. You are also aroused. Do you think that I cannot tell?”

He released her. “Come to my chamber now.”

She trembled as she scrambled to get into the silk ensemble.

She had not been in his chamber since it became his domain. Nothing of her old sitting room remained, and she felt a stranger as she examined the carved bed with its dark-green drapes and the tables littered with his personal things.

He lounged on a chair, as confident in his physical presence as ever. She chose to stand, far away. She crossed her arms and pretended to study the redecorating.

“Charl and her friends took good care of you tonight. They have my gratitude.”

“I know I behaved badly. I know it will only give Gregory’s lies validation. If you intend to tell me what a mess I made of things, you do not have to. I have been castigating myself for the last hour.”

“I did not seek you out to scold. I want to know what made you lose your composure.”

“I was overtired.”

“Charl said it was something else. She said you were distraught because you concluded I am having an affair with the Baroness Dalry.”

She was so humiliated she could only stare at the floor. She wished Charlotte had been good to her word and waited until tomorrow to upbraid Dante.

“Was she correct? Did seeing those earrings distress you this much?”

She could not admit she had been so stupid, so pointlessly jealous.

“Well, Fleur, we have created a little hell for ourselves, haven’t we? You promised never to be jealous, but then break down when you suspect you have seen my lover. I promised never to take you, but spend my time thinking about little else.”

He was thinking of it now. It was in his eyes and body. It still affected the air. She told herself she was safe with him, but she did not entirely believe it right now.

“I should have guessed that somewhere in that ballroom there would be one of your lovers—from the past, surely, and possibly your current one. I just did not think about it, and so I was surprised. I will know better in the future. You are understandably angry, but this will never happen again.”

“I am not angry because you were jealous.”

“I have no right. I know that.”

“No, you have no right. All the same, you became jealous on very little evidence. I, on the other hand, actually saw you meeting with a man this morning. At least my jealousy is based on something of substance.”

Dear Lord, he had followed her longer this morning than she thought. If he knew about that meeting, he had been at the church.

She strolled around the room and debated her response. She tried not to look like she was pacing, but he was making her very nervous. The aura was pouring off him without restraint, filling the chamber, washing over her without mercy. His calm tone did not hide his mood, and his gaze revealed a mind making calculations that she dared not guess.

“I will not lie,” she began. “You are correct. I met with Mr. Siddel this morning. Surely you know that it was not—that we are not—that would be impossible.”

“So you claim.”

“Are you doubting me? Good heavens, are you wondering if I lied about that? You cannot believe that I would so callously play you false when I proposed this marriage.”

“I do not know what I believe anymore, since very little of this marriage has met my expectations and since you have not been honest in other ways.”

“I am being honest now. Mr. Siddel and I do not have that kind of alliance. We are not even friends. We met on a matter of business.”

“What business?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“You mean that you will not tell me. Are you going to throw our agreement at me if I insist? As I said, this is not the night for that.”

She felt trapped. She desperately sought words that would appease him.

“Is Siddel an adviser to you in the use of your inheritance?”

“Yes, you could say that.”

“Then you are to find another one. You are to have nothing more to do with the man. No communication, no meetings. If you require a counselor, retain Hampton. If you want advice on business affairs, St. John will gladly help you, and when Vergil comes back he will be as good an adviser as you can find. Hugh Siddel, however, cannot be trusted. I’ll be damned before I tolerate your meetings with him.”

He had no idea what he was asking.
Demanding.

Any thoughts she had of arguing disappeared when Dante rose from the chair and strolled toward her. She eased away to keep some distance.

It did not work. In no time she was standing against the wall and he was in front of her.

“You do not care for my instructions about Siddel, do you?”

“No.”

“Do you have affection for this man?”

“It is not that, I have told you. However, these matters are supposed to be mine alone.”

“Ah, yes. Because of our settlement.”

The way he said it, the sparks in his eyes and the dangerous smile that slowly formed, had her sinking into the wall.

“If you are finished, I will get some sleep now, Dante.”

He rested his hand high against the wall, propping his casual stance, but it also seemed a gesture to block her path to the small door. “Not yet. There are several other things I want to say to you tonight, Fleur.”

“Then say them.” She wished he were not so close. When he sat in the chair and she strolled the room she could avoid looking at him, but she couldn’t now with him hovering like this.

“She is not my lover. I returned the jewels because they belong to her, and I had no need of her generous gesture after we married. They are hers to wear when she chooses, however.”

She resented the way her heart rose with joy at his announcement. She hated how the night’s sadness simply fell away. Her reaction only proved how enslaved her emotions were.

The humiliation did not disappear, however. This reassurance mortified her. “Then I handed Gregory a victory and I don’t even have an excuse. This has truly been a disastrous night.”

His fingertips feathered some strands of hair back from her face. “I disagree. I learned that you are jealous of all these lovers I am permitted in this marriage. I am glad to know it. That changes everything.”

His vague touch had her senses alert and alive. Her body could feel the warmth of his even with twelve inches between them. “I do not see how it changes anything.”

“We both gave up rights when we spoke in that sponging-house yard. You gave up the right to jealousy, but you are still jealous. I gave up the right to want you, but I still do. It could have worked anyway, except for one problem. You want me too. If you didn’t, my interest would fade. If you didn’t, you would not be jealous.”

“So it is my fault.”

“It is mine, for assuming I could want to protect a woman and not also want to possess her.” He watched his finger draw along the line of her jaw. “This arrangement is impossible now that we know the truth of what exists between us, Fleur. It cannot go on. I am not inclined to live my life like this.”

Heaviness returned to her heart. He wanted to be free of this false marriage. He wanted to be free of her.

“We can arrange never to see each other. Even sharing this house, we can do that. After Gregory has retreated, you can move elsewhere. Unless . . . unless you want to cooperate with him, and then procure an annulment. If you are truly unhappy, I will not fight that solution.”

She dreaded the implications of that annulment, but if Dante wanted one she would not ask him to change his mind. He was right, and this marriage had not been what they expected.

“Those are all solutions, Fleur, but not the one I want. We are married, and I think it is time to act as if we are.”

“Not—”

“Not really married. That is what you were going to say, isn’t it? Not really a husband. The agreement led you to think of me that way. That locked door did too. I don’t much care for this belief you have that we are not really married. It is time to admit that we are.”

He rested his fingertips on her cheek. “It is also time to admit how much we want each other.”

“That will only lead to unhappiness.”

He kissed her, lingering, letting the power of that kiss do its worst, forcing her heart to accept what her body wanted.

“Did that make you unhappy, Fleur? When I held you in the garden, were you unhappy?”

She stared at the gap in his shirt where it lay open at his neck. A jumble of reactions confused her. Pleasure and gratitude clashed with the memory of a fear so visceral it could turn her to stone.

“It will eventually. I cannot give you what you want.”

He did not respond. She snuck a glance up. His expression stunned her. A man who had never been refused by a woman was studying her, judging her strengths and assessing her weakness.