Marquesses at the Masquerade(82)

She wasn’t laughing.

In the early hours, she heard movement in her husband’s chambers. Where had he been? She dried her face on her sheets, rose, and tapped on his door.

“Yes.” His voice was hoarse.

She slowly entered. Her husband rested in his bed, his head propped against the headboard, an open journal in his hands. A candle burned on the side table. He smelled of brandy and cigar smoke. She wanted to ask where he had been. At the same time, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

“D-did you have a good evening?” she asked.

He set his journal beside him on the mattress. “Tolerable. And you?” He glanced up at her. This was the first time in the entire day that he had actually looked at her. She thought she might burst out in tears again.

“Phoebe had a fabulous time at the play.”

“It doesn’t take much to amuse her.”

“I wish I could be so easily entertained.”

“It’s a special gift,” he quipped.

For a passing moment, they had lapsed into their old rhythm of conversation, but then that moment faded away, and the raw silence returned.

“M-may I stay?” she asked.

He pushed the journal off the bed.

As she crawled under the covers, he snuffed the candle. She curled beside him and rested her head on his shoulder. She rubbed his chest with her hand, trying to release his tense muscles and get any tender response from him. She drifted her hand lower and pressed her thighs against his.

His hand locked onto her wrist. “Annalise, I need some time,” he said.

He turned onto his side, putting his back to her.

*



Each day of the following week felt like a fresh performance of the same play, only with different characters playing the minor roles. Annalise tried to reach out to Exmore, bringing his favorite books, speaking of subjects that once drew laughs, but the harder she tried, the more he retreated from her into a cold politeness.

Two weeks since her marriage seemingly fell apart, the gray morning found her staring at the blank page on her writing desk. No amount of tea could lift her doldrums. Her pen hovered over the page, her mind bursting with words to say, but she didn’t know who to tell them to. She couldn’t write to Patrick anymore. And her husband was actively avoiding her.

She hadn’t felt so despairing since the deaths of her parents. She had written to Patrick of her sadness then. Now, she had no one to talk to. She had gone beyond rationalizing what had happened that morning when Exmore discovered the letters. She wanted only to see the warm light in her husband’s eyes again, as when he used to gaze at her in that beautiful time before he found the letters.

The sound of a carriage pulling up outside the home yanked her from her thoughts. Oh no, not more callers. She didn’t think she was capable of making polite conversation without breaking down. She rose and crossed to the window, edging back the curtain. Her husband stepped down from the carriage. Her hurting heart rose at his sight. She turned and hurried down the stairs. The footmen were taking away his hat and gloves by the time she reached the bottom step.

“My dearest,” he said, bowing. She saw something in his eyes—sadness, love, yearning? It happened too fast to tell before that cold reserve was back.

She didn’t care if he pushed her away. She rushed to him and threw her arms around him.

“Ah, a happy greeting,” he quipped in her ear. “You must have heard that Patrick is back and coming to call today.”

*



Exmore felt his wife’s body stiffen when it had been so soft and open. She drew away from him and wrapped her arms about herself.

He didn’t know why he had said what he said. Some vengeful devil resided in him that, despite his best intentions, pushed Annalise away. He had rambled through the days, moving from club, to coffee house, to tea shop, to bookstore, to Parliament, to gaming hell, and all the while, she had consumed his thoughts. At hells, women had approached him, but their smiles, conversation, and touch had all grated. No one could replace Annalise.

Yet, whenever he was near Annalise, an ugly rage seized ahold of him that kept her at a distance. He knew what he had done wasn’t fair. Theirs was not a love match. He had known she still loved Patrick when he asked her to marry him, yet there had been something so visceral about the written words, It should have been you. Why did she have to write that sentiment?

His rational mind didn’t want to hurt Annalise, but his heart punished her for not loving him, and for Cassandra not loving him as well.

He had been musing over these thoughts earlier that morning when crossing Piccadilly. He had looked up and spied Patrick and his father approaching from the opposite direction. Before Exmore could pretend not to have seen them, Wallis nodded his head, acknowledging Exmore.

“Patrick, welcome back.” Exmore had greeted the men through tight lips when their paths met. Exmore remembered Patrick as a self-absorbed youth, that stage of young manhood when Patrick had possessed a very limited view of the world, and that narrow perspective had revolved entirely around himself. It had been an exuberant confidence born of ignorance. Exmore had looked into Patrick’s bright, unclouded eyes to see little had changed about the brash young man. The only visible difference was that Patrick was even more handsome, his face leaner and more tan, his frame larger and more muscular.

A mere bow hadn’t been good enough for Patrick. He had drawn Exmore into a hard, back-slapping embrace. “It’s great to be home,” Patrick had said. “Good to see you. My father tells me you married Miss Van Der Keer. My Miss Van Der Keer.” He had laughed, clearly having no hard feelings. “Something must have changed your mind after that harsh lecture you rang over me about her. Maybe you had your eye on her all along, eh?” More laughter.