Chapter Ten
“Your hand is going to get us caught.”
“Nonsense. The tablecloth hides everything.”
“Adrian, I cannot possibly discuss the menu with Cook while you’re—oh goodness—”
Marianne gripped the edge of the breakfast table, striving for composure as Adrian’s hand continued its wicked mischief beneath her skirts. Three weeks of marriage had taught her one undeniable truth: her husband was incorrigible, particularly when propriety demanded restraint.
“You were saying something about the fish course?” He took a measured sip of tea with his free hand, the very image of ducal composure above the table—while below, he conspired to make her lose all sense of it.
“I was saying—” She bit her lip as his touch grew far too knowing. “You are impossible.”
“I’m attentive. There’s a distinction.” His hand stilled just as she was about to lose all sense. “Now, about that fish course?”
“Adrian Blackwell, if you do not—”
The breakfast-room door burst open.
“Adrian! I’m home! Where are you, you impossible—oh.”
Marianne froze. Adrian’s hand vanished so swiftly she almost doubted its presence at all.
In the doorway stood a woman who could only be Lady Catherine Blackwell—golden-haired where Adrian was dark, delicate where he was angular, but with the same intelligent eyes and stubborn chin.
“Catherine.” Adrian rose slowly, his voice neutral and too calm. “You’re early.”
“By three days, yes. The Channel was uncharacteristically obliging.” Catherine’s gaze darted between them, taking in Marianne’s flushed cheeks and Adrian’s guilty posture. A knowing smile curved her lips. “I appear to be interrupting breakfast.”
“Not at all,” Marianne managed, praying her voice sounded normal. “You must be Lady Catherine. I’m—”
“My new sister!” Catherine crossed the room in a rustle of travel-worn silk and embraced her before anyone could react. “Oh, you’re even prettier than they said. And you married him—voluntarily! Are you quite in your senses?”
“Catherine,” Adrian warned.
“What? It’s a fair question. You are not precisely the ideal husband, dearest brother—all that brooding and glowering.” She stepped back to study Marianne, her eyes bright. “Though I suppose you have your reasons.”
Something flickered across Adrian’s face—discomfort, perhaps warning. “Catherine.”
“Oh, don’t look at me like that. I meant you’re useful for reaching high shelves and frightening away unwanted suitors.” Her tone was light, but there was a hidden edge beneath it.
“How was Rome?” Marianne asked, hoping to ease the strain in the air.
“Tedious by the end. There are only so many ruins one can admire before they begin to resemble one another.” Catherine smiled thinly. “But I hear you’ve caused quite the stir here. The merchant’s daughter who tamed the Beast.”
The words should have been playful, but they landed like a challenge. Adrian went very still.
“Catherine,” he said quietly. “Perhaps you should rest after your journey.”
“Oh, I’m not the least bit tired.” She settled into a chair, helping herself to toast with deliberate casualness. “In fact, I’m rather eager to hear about this whirlwind romance. You met and married with astonishing haste, did you not?”
“It happened quickly,” Marianne replied evenly, watching Catherine closely. Something was off here—something she couldn’t yet define.
“Oh, quickly. How very diplomatic.” Catherine’s laugh was bright but brittle. “Tell me, did my brother mention his tendency toward obsession when he proposed? Or was that a delightful discovery reserved for after the vows?”
“Catherine.” Adrian’s voice held real warning now.
“What? Shouldn’t your wife know about your.
.. singular nature? How you fixate upon something until nothing else exists?
” She turned to Marianne. “He once spent six months learning ancient Greek merely to read one particular text in the original. Could speak of nothing else the entire time. Drove Father absolutely mad.”
“That’s hardly the same as—”
“Isn’t it?” Catherine pressed. “You see something you desire, and the world ceases to exist until you possess it. Whether it’s a book, a horse—or, apparently, a wife.”
The air grew taut. Marianne looked between them, trying to read the undercurrents.
“You’re upset,” she said gently. “About the marriage?”
“Upset? Why should I be upset?” Catherine’s voice rose. “My brother married a stranger without a word to me. I had to learn of it from gossip in Rome—‘The Beast of Belgravia has taken a bride,’ they said. ‘Some merchant’s daughter—can you imagine?’”
“Catherine, enough.” Adrian stood, his face carved from stone.
“Is it? Because from where I stand, you’ve merely exchanged one obsession for another. India wasn’t distant enough, so now you’ve found a new distraction to keep you from facing—”
“Stop.” The word cracked like a whip. Adrian’s hands clenched, control barely holding. “You have no idea what you’re saying.”
“Don’t I?” Catherine rose to face him, matching his fury. “Five years, Adrian. Five years of letters that said nothing—of silence where there should have been family. And now this sudden marriage? To a woman you barely know?”
“I know enough.”
“Is that so? Or did you simply find another way to punish yourself?”
Marianne stood. “I think perhaps—”
“Stay out of this,” Catherine snapped, then looked instantly stricken. “I’m sorry. That was... I’m sorry.”
“You’re tired,” Adrian said, forcing calm. “Go rest. We’ll speak later.”
“Will we? Or will you vanish into your study again, pretending the past doesn’t exist?”
“I never avoided you. You left.”
“Because you couldn’t bear to look at me!” The words burst out of her. “Every time you saw me, you saw the carriage, the blood, what you lost because of me.”
“That’s not—”
“It is! And now you’ve married someone who doesn’t know, who can look at you without guilt, and you think that makes it all right?”
Silence fell, heavy as lead. Marianne felt like an intruder in her own breakfast room, witnessing a conversation five years in the making.
“You know nothing of my marriage,” Adrian said finally, his voice deadly quiet.
“I know you married her with unseemly haste. I know it followed a scandal. And I know you’re using her as a wall between yourself and the world.”
“Using her?” Adrian’s composure shattered. “You think I married Marianne to use her?”
“Didn’t you? She’s ideal for it—too new to society to know all the whispers, too unconnected to challenge your narrative. A blank slate for you to mould as you please.”
“How dare you—”
“How dare I what? Speak truth? You’ve been punishing yourself since that day, Adrian, and now you’ve trapped someone else in it.”
“That’s enough!” Marianne’s voice cut sharply through theirs. Both turned toward her.
“Lady Catherine,” she said evenly, “you’re clearly exhausted from travel and speaking from emotion rather than reason. And as for you, Your Grace,”—she turned to Adrian, whose face was white with fury—“perhaps you should attend to that correspondence you mentioned earlier.”
“Marianne—”
“Please.” Her tone brooked no argument. “We all need a moment to collect ourselves.”
Adrian looked like he wanted to argue, but something in her expression stopped him. He nodded stiffly and strode out, the door closing with careful control behind him.
Catherine sank back into her chair, suddenly looking very young. “I’ve made a mess of things.”
“Yes,” Marianne agreed, sitting across from her. “You have.”
“I didn’t mean... I was simply so… angry. He married you without telling me. His own sister.”
“And that hurt you.”
“Shouldn’t it?” Tears welled in Catherine’s eyes. “We were inseparable once. He was my protector, my confidant, my best friend. And then the accident happened—and everything changed.”
Marianne reached into her reticule and withdrew a delicate linen handkerchief, the edges embroidered with tiny forget-me-nots that her mother had stitched years ago.
She handed it across the polished breakfast table to Catherine, noting how the younger woman’s fingers trembled slightly as she accepted it. “Tell me about before.”
Catherine dabbed at her eyes with careful movements, the morning light from the tall windows catching the tears that still clung to her lashes. She took a shuddering breath before speaking, her voice thick with emotion.
“He was different. Still serious—Adrian was born serious—but he laughed sometimes. He played music constantly. He had friends, interests beyond the estate. He was... alive.”
“And after?” Marianne prompted gently, leaning forward slightly in her chair, the silk of her morning dress rustling softly with the movement.
Catherine’s expression crumpled, fresh grief washing over her delicate features.
“After, he was a stranger wearing my brother’s face.
Cold, distant, formal. He wouldn’t let me apologise, wouldn’t let me thank him, wouldn’t let me near him at all.
Every conversation was about the weather or the estate or nothing at all.
” She looked up at Marianne, her blue eyes swimming with unshed tears, her voice dropping to barely above a whisper.
“Then I heard he’d married you, and I thought. .. I hoped...”
“That things would be different?” Marianne supplied softly, her heart aching for the pain radiating from the young woman across from her.
“That he was healing. But seeing you both just now, the way he looks at you... It’s not healing. It’s just another kind of fever.”
Marianne considered Catherine’s words carefully, weighing each syllable, understanding the fear behind them.
The morning sun had climbed higher now, casting long shadows across the breakfast room’s elegant wallpaper. She could hear the distant sounds of servants going about their morning duties, the normal rhythm of the household continuing despite the emotional upheaval in this room.
“Your brother is… complicated,” she said at last.
Catherine’s laugh was a bitter, broken sound that seemed to echo off the high ceiling. “That’s one way to put it. Diplomatic, even.”