Chapter Twenty
Jerome was excruciatingly polite, and Ava was sparklingly brittle.
All evening. By the time they got home, she was exhausted and went straight to her room and, for the first time since her marriage, locked all the doors.
She couldn’t face another fight with Jerome, and she was afraid that was what would happen.
She needed a good cry with no witnesses.
*
Jerome was devastated when he found her door locked against him and promptly left the house again and went to his club, where he played cards and drank steadily for several hours before reluctantly wending his way home again.
He fell into bed half undressed at four in the morning and slept until after midday.
He had the devil of a head when he woke, and when he inquired as to Her Ladyship’s movements, learned that Ava had left the house early to ride her mare. He winced at the broken appointment. They had been meant to go riding together.
He groaned, drank coffee, and took himself off to Gentleman Jackson’s to sweat out some of the alcohol still swimming in his system.
When he got home, feeling more sober and clearer headed, he discovered that Ava had returned and left the house again. Skelton, his butler, couldn’t hazard a guess as to where she had gone, but she had taken the carriage.
Jerome retired to the library to await her return and fell asleep in his chair. When he woke it was dark, and he was informed that Ava had gone out again.
He ate a solitary dinner and once more set himself to wait for her return.
All this time alone gave him time to think.
What had haunted him all day was the thought: Was this the way my parents’ marriage unraveled?
An initial quarrel that divided them? He had to find a way to rebuild a level of understanding between them.
A simple apology wasn’t enough. She had clearly misinterpreted what he said.
Exactly what she thought he had implied by his words, he wasn’t sure, and it behooved him to find out. Perhaps then he could correct it.
Something else was apparent to him also and made him feel slightly sick.
Ava valued her friendship with Lannister highly.
Highly enough to put her relationship with himself in jeopardy.
But then, he reasoned, loyalty was one of Ava’s strongest traits.
She was fiercely loyal to those she cared about.
It was obvious she did care about Lannister, as ill as that notion made him feel.
She also was a fierce and stubborn champion of the lese privileged, the outsider, anyone shunned or overlooked by others, and Lannister’s opprobrium in society would put him in that class in Ava’s eyes.
But putting her loyalty to Lannister above her loyalty to him, her husband? He struggled with that.
By the time he heard the sounds of Ava’s arrival home, he had thought himself to a standstill and he was deadly sober.
He went to the library door and opened it. Ava was crossing the entrance hall toward the stairs.
“Ava.” His voice arrested her progress, and she turned at the bottom of the stairs, her hand on the newel post. “May I speak with you?”
She hesitated a moment, and then with an inclination of her head, she stepped toward him.
He held the library door open for her, and she went ahead of him into the room.
She was still wearing her cloak of ruched white satin over a gown of shimmering blue silk.
Her hair was dressed in curls on top of her head, with fashionable ringlets at the sides.
She looked like a fairy princess. No, he corrected that thought with a look at her face, an ice princess.
She clutched her reticule and her fan in tight fingers; her whitened knuckles were a clear signal of her inner turmoil, although none of it showed on her well-schooled features.
She waited in silence for him to say something, and that was a surprise in itself.
Ava was known for her impetuosity and impatience.
A younger Ava would have burst into heated speech before this, unable to bear the silence.
He approached her carefully and took her hands in his, removing the reticule and fan and tossing them on the desk chair behind him.
Holding her hands, he looked into her lovely blue eyes and said softly, “Ava, I am very sorry. It seems I have deeply offended you, and that was not my intention. Will you please explain to me how I have done so?”
She made a gasping sound, her lips parting and her eyes widening in surprise. Whatever she had thought he was going to say, it clearly wasn’t that. Had she braced herself for a scold?
Her lower lip trembled, and her eyes welled. “I—how can you care more about what others think than for my feelings?”
He stared at her, at a loss. “I don’t. Why would you think that?”
“Because you want me to give up my friendship with Rey for fear of what people might say! Even though you know that there is nothing in it to cause you concern.”
“I am motivated by a desire to protect you from malicious gossip as well as myself. And I admit that I am hurt by your loyalty toward him over me. I am your husband, Ava, and I love you. Surely, I have more of a right to your loyalty than he does?”
She took a ragged breath and said wretchedly, “Yes, you do! But what hurts is your forcing me to make a choice between you!” She swallowed. “Very well, I shall hold him at a distance from now on, but will you allow me the opportunity to explain it to him?”
Relief washed through him at her capitulation, and he said roughly, “Of course.”
She nodded and said, “Thank you.” She turned aside, as if to go to the door, and his heart sank.
“Ava.” He put his hands on her upper arms and pulled her back against him. “Ava love, please—”
With a sob she turned in his arms and pressed herself against his chest, her arms going around his waist. “I hate it when we are at outs,” she confessed.
“So do I!” He cupped her face and kissed her. After a bit he said soft and low, “Am I welcome in your bedchamber again, my lady?”
“Yes,” she said husky voiced.
He scooped her up and carried her upstairs to her room, where he got rid of her gown in short order, without destroying it this time or ruining his own attire, and tumbled her into bed.
A little while later, moving in her with his eyes fixed on hers, his weight on his elbows and his hands cupping her face, he said, “I love you, Ava. Never forget that.”
“I love you, too,” she said, blinking tears from her eyes. He caught one tear with his thumb and bent his head to catch the other with his tongue on her cheek.
“Don’t cry, my darling!”
“I can’t help it!” she said, sniffing. “I’m so happy!”
He smiled and kissed her. “Me too,” he murmured.
If only we can remain so. We have weathered the first storm, but will there be more to come?
He feared two such volatile souls were destined for a stormy passage, but he swore he would do everything he could to keep them on course.
His fear of repeating the horrors of his parents’ marriage, even without its horrific conclusion, had kept him from taking a wife.
But with Ava, it would be different. It had to be different.
He loved her so much. She loved him, or so she said.
She was not his mother; he was not his father. Their marriage would be different.