Chapter 12 #2
His hand settled comfortably on the small of her back as if it belonged there, pulling her nearer to him. “Hosting a ball is tedious business. I’ve been drawn into no fewer than a dozen conversations in which I had no desire to participate.”
“Of course,” she said coolly, not believing him for a moment.
Although Sybil tried her utmost to remain impervious to her husband’s aloof lack of emotion where she was concerned, there were some days when she wondered if doing so would truly be possible. His lack of emotion never ceased to affect her.
They linked their hands as the familiar strains of a waltz began, and she tried to ignore the jolt of heat skipping up her wrist and past her elbow.
It didn’t matter that gloves separated them, that she had known this man intimately for weeks, or that they had enjoyed far greater familiarity than a mere entwining of gloved fingers.
She was as intensely aware of him as ever, much to her chagrin.
They spun gracefully, as if they had always been meant to dance together thus. For a moment, she forgot how thoroughly vexed she was with him. But then he spoke again and spoiled the illusion.
“You and Kingham certainly looked as if you were engaged in a cozy tête-à-tête,” Everett murmured in her ear as they glided along.
“Surely you aren’t jealous.”
The notion was preposterous. First, he had nothing of which to be jealous.
She scarcely knew the Duke of Kingham beyond the handful of conversations they had enjoyed.
But most important and distressing of all, Everett couldn’t be bothered to consider her existence beyond his nightly visits to her bedchamber.
He had made his interest in her plain. It was her body’s ability to bring him pleasure and possibly bear him a child that he cared about, and nothing more.
“Have I reason to be?” he asked with deceptive calm as they performed another graceful whirl.
She tipped her head back so she could see his face. “Do you think I harbor a tendre for the Duke of Kingham? Because if so, I can assure you that I do not.”
One male in her life was misery enough to deal with. She had no wish for another. Even if he was as handsome and amusing as the Duke of Kingham.
“Are you certain?” Everett asked.
She narrowly resisted the urge to stomp on his foot. “Don’t be silly. The Duke of Kingham is your friend, and as such, he is mine as well.”
Her husband laughed grimly. “I don’t believe the Duke of Kingham is capable of being a friend to any woman without wanting to get beneath her skirts.”
His vulgar assessment made her nearly trip on her hems. “You needn’t fret in that regard, I can assure you, Your Grace.”
“Ah. I have displeased you.”
“I shouldn’t think that would concern you,” she couldn’t help retorting. “You displease me regularly.”
He gave her a searing look. “I thought I pleased you well, wife.”
He knew he did, the callous devil. But he also knew that wasn’t what she was speaking about.
New warmth rose within her, and she had to look away from his knowing gaze, averting her eyes to the couples waltzing around them instead. “There is more to a marriage than what happens in the bedroom.”
His jaw hardened. “In an ordinary marriage, perhaps, but we both have come to the agreement that this is no ordinary union, have we not?”
“If we have, then why are you so concerned about whether I dance with the Duke of Kingham?”
“Because I’ll not be cuckolded, damn you.”
His low words were pointed, sinking into her heart. “I have been loyal to you.”
He bit out a bitter laugh. “If that is what you would like to call it, my dear.”
“When do you think I am taking lovers?” she hissed, trying to keep her voice down so that no one else could overhear them sparring. “I’ve been spending every day with both of our mothers and your sister.”
It would do no good for tongues to wag. Not that she particularly cared one way or the other. But she had grown exceedingly fond of both the dowager and Lady Verity. She had no wish to cause undue speculation or scandal that would harm either of them.
“I don’t trust King with you,” he bit out. “All that bastard would require is five minutes in a moonlit garden, and he would have any woman in this room on her knees.”
“Not me.”
“Stay away from him.”
“He is your friend,” she pointed out, frustrated. “If he is such an irascible scoundrel, it is a wonder you keep company with him.”
“All my friends are scoundrels, madam,” he said. “Including me.”
“That I can well believe,” she snapped, thinking of the wicked house party she had attended and the depravities she had seen and heard whispers about.
How she hated the reminder that her husband was a rake.
Whilst she chided him for his misplaced jealousy, she couldn’t tamp down her own.
All the women he had known before her, whose lips he had kissed, whose beds he had shared.
How she resented them for having more of him than he was willing to give her.
They spun about yet again, holding their tongues, having apparently reached a stalemate. Sybil forced her stare over her husband’s shoulder, pinning it to the glittering chandelier overhead, trying not to cry. The ball was such a crowning success, and yet her marriage was an abject failure.
She had married a man who would never return her love.
The waltz came to an end, and with another half bow and dejected curtsy, they parted ways, every bit as unhappy as they had been when the music had first begun.
Lady Verity Saunders hated balls.
She hated them because they reminded her of Leo. Lord Leopold Douglas, the second son of the Duke of Morgan, with his golden hair and sky-blue eyes and the only lips she’d ever kissed. With the heart that was the other half of hers.
Balls reminded her of everything she had lost, of the future she’d once dreamed of that could never be hers.
They reminded her of the gentle, sweet, funny young man who had died ten years ago before they could wed.
And each time she was reminded of him, her heart ached as if it had been torn asunder anew.
Whoever had first opined that time could heal all wounds had been wrong. Time had not healed hers. It never would. That was why she was presently hiding in a curtained alcove overlooking the crush that had invaded her brother’s ballroom in honor of his new duchess.
Because she’d done her duty.
She had pinned a smile to her lips.
She had danced.
She had made certain the champagne was properly kept cold, that the flowers were fresh, that the musicians knew which songs to play and when they must do so.
She had fretted over the details which had been entrusted to her.
Supper was some two hours away, and she needed the reprieve from her obligations.
She needed to be alone.
Just for a few minutes. Long enough to regain her composure before she ventured below again, as if she hadn’t just spent time hiding in an alcove, dashing miserably at tears that wouldn’t stop falling, no matter how hard she tried to keep them from doing so.
“Oh, Leo,” she whispered, sniffling.
Most days, she kept the memories and sadness at bay. She threw herself into her cause, the Children’s Foundling Hospital. She was so busy that her weary mind was distracted and she could carry on with each day.
“Handkerchief?”
With a squeak, Verity spun around, pressing a hand over her frantically beating heart as she discovered the Duke of Kingham standing in the alcove with her, an embroidered silk square held out in offering, as if this sort of thing were commonplace between the two of them.
As if he regularly stole silently into her hiding place at balls and gave her the handkerchief from his own pocket to dry the tears no one else was meant to see.
“What are you doing here?” she asked warily.
Kingham was a close chum of her brother’s, but she didn’t know him particularly well, despite his close association with Riverdale.
“Did my brother send you to find me?” she added before he could answer, horrified at the prospect.
Her grief for Leo was private, something for her alone. Just like her memories of him were, along with the stack of every letter he had ever written her, bound with a satin ribbon and kept in a wooden box on the table by her bed.
“Riverdale is too busy growling at every gentleman below who so much as glances in Her Grace’s direction to take note of anyone else,” Kingham said wryly. “Here. Take the handkerchief.”
She sniffled again. “That is quite kind of you to offer, Your Grace, but I don’t require one.”
His dark eyes traveled over her face. “Your nose is dripping.”
Embarrassment flooded her. Good heavens, what a picture she must present, red-nosed and puffy-eyed, no doubt, snot coming out of her nose.
She took the handkerchief, using it to dab discreetly at first her eyes, then the tip of her nose, keenly aware of him watching her as she did so.
“Thank you.”
“Give me a name, Lady Verity.”
She frowned, not understanding, her mind still mired in the mists of grief. “Do you mean you wish for me to grant you a nickname?”
“No, but you have my permission to do so should it amuse you. I was referring to the cad who is responsible for your current state. Only tell me who he is, and I’ll be more than happy to thrash him for making you weep.”
His countenance, like his tone, was grim.
The Duke of Kingham was tall and powerfully built, his broad shoulders filling out his exquisitely tailored coat in a perfection that, on another gentleman, she might have suspected was aided by padding.
Not so for him. She had once seen him in naught but shirtsleeves, punting on the lake at Riverdale Abbey.
His well-muscled figure did not need any help.