Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Finding Evie hiding in the greenhouse caused something to snap inside James.
Supper had been an ordeal. All his life, he had striven to be worthy of his family legacy.
He lived by principles of honor, duty, and fidelity.
He had dedicated himself to his roles as heir, brother, and husband because he believed that was the right thing to do and the path to fulfillment.
Yet there at the supper table, surrounded by the people closest to him, he’d come to an ugly realization.
He wasn’t fulfilled. He wasn’t even happy. Even though he’d done everything right, the true Blackwood tradition eluded him: his marriage was not a love match.
Not even close.
As he’d observed the banter and intimacy between the other couples, a chilly awareness had percolated through him.
He had been deceiving himself…for years.
He’d told himself that he and Evie had what the others had: their version of love was merely more private.
He’d convinced himself that, because Evie was shy when it came to personal matters, she felt what she might not say aloud.
She expressed affection in her own way. By running his home with smooth competence.
By being a good companion. By supporting him when his youngest brother Owen had returned from the Afghan war a different man—a man haunted by demons that had hurt others, Ethan most grievously.
As hard as James tried, there had been naught he could do to help his brothers mend fences.
Nor could he ease the suffering of his other family members, who had felt the pain of Owen and Ethan’s estrangement keenly.
James’s failure had filled him with guilt and frustration.
If it hadn’t been for Evie, for her steady presence and calm counsel, he would have been rudderless in a stormy sea.
He’d been infinitely grateful, and her patience and care had felt to him like love.
So what if she seldom said those three little words so commonly associated with devotion?
He’d told himself that that was what words were: common.
During the two tumultuous affairs he’d had as a bachelor, the phrase “I love you” had been bandied about—by the women and, he’d acknowledged with embarrassment, by him.
He’d said them because that seemed to be the expectation…
to be part of the game that his lovers had enjoyed playing.
In the end, the words had meant nothing: they were a cheap and trite approximation of the real thing.
Behavior was what counted. With Evie, he’d persuaded himself that he had found true substance. Her actions demonstrated her love for him. They had a genuine bond, the kind that kept a couple together through thick and thin, through sickness and health. And that was enough.
But it’s not. It never has been. I’ve been pulling the wool over my own bloody eyes.
The realization staggered him. It also ripped off the blinders he’d donned for the better part of the year.
The truth was Evie had abandoned the pretense of having any interest in him or their life together.
She had withdrawn so completely that she was a mere shadow in their marriage.
His rationale that her behavior was a natural reaction to grief still held…
but for God’s sake, it had to end sometime. Enough was enough.
“I thought you had a megrim,” he said.
“I, um, did.” She bit her lip. “I thought work might prove a distraction.”
“Of course.” He didn’t hide his bitterness. “You find joy in your experiments, but entertaining the family is an obligation. You must suffer through their company until you can make your escape.”
“No. That’s not it at all—”
“Then tell me how it is, Evie.”
He gave her the challenging stare that he usually reserved for political rivals who argued for the status quo. Who buried their heads in the sand and refused to acknowledge the winds of change.
“Tell me,” he repeated. “Mama is so concerned that she sent me to check up on you. However, I find you not in your bedchamber but here—buried in your blasted journal instead of carrying out your duties as the lady of the house. Is spending time with the family that repugnant to you?”
The memory of his mama’s troubled expression scalded his throat.
“Something is amiss with Evie,” she’d said.
“I know how much you value privacy, dearest, but I must ask: are the two of you experiencing some sort of difficulty? You can talk to me about it…or Papa, of course. As he and I have been married for millennia, we have considerable expertise when it comes to marital spats.”
His mama’s attempt at lightheartedness hadn’t dimmed James’s humiliation.
He’d thought that his personal problems were inconspicuous—that no one was aware of the distance between him and Evie.
Yet Mama had noticed their unhappiness, a fact she’d undoubtedly shared with Papa.
Perhaps his siblings also suspected that something was rotten in the state of his marriage.
As the heir, James was supposed to be the role model. Leadership had always come naturally for him, and he’d prided himself on following in his father’s footsteps and setting a good example for his brothers. To know that his failure was obvious to one and all came as a nasty blow.
“How could you even suggest such a thing? I like your family…very much. You know that.”
Evie’s gaze swam. It took every ounce of his willpower not to cave to her pleading expression.
His reflex was to smooth things over—to not press her further when it caused her obvious discomfort.
Yet what had leaving Evie to her own devices achieved thus far?
To his irritation, he saw that her hand remained protectively upon her closed journal, a gesture that conveyed her priorities.
He shook his head in disgust. “I am beginning to think I do not know you at all.”
“What…what do you mean?”
Her bottom lip trembled, and he recalled how full and plush it had felt when he’d licked it.
When she’d kissed him after the kidnapping as if her life depended upon it.
..as if she’d genuinely wanted him. The bolt of lust made him angrier.
He’d been trying his damnedest to make their marriage work, yet Evie seemed unaware…
or indifferent. It was like trying to waltz with a partner who dragged her feet getting to the dance floor.
“Let us give up the pretense,” he said sharply. “I have been coddling you for the past year. Since we lost the babe.”
Her sharp inhalation stabbed him with guilt, but he was done with allowing her to hide. With pretending that everything was as it should be when nothing—not one bloody thing—was right between them.
“I understand the loss was difficult. However, you cannot avoid me and our life because of it. I will not allow it.”
The tears she’d held back slipped down her cheeks, making him feel like a veritable scoundrel. Every gentlemanly instinct demanded that he stand down—that he retreat and give her the space to manage her emotions in private.
“You will not allow it?” she echoed.
“It has been a year.” He tried softening his stance. “These things happen, and we must move forward. We are young, Evie, and have a future ahead of us—”
“We have no future.”
Her vehemence took him aback.
Frowning, he said, “The physician said you are perfectly healthy. As am I. There is no reason we cannot—”
“There are so many reasons, James.”
Her laugh, a hollow and mirthless sound, raised the hairs on his neck. Her eyes turned as hard and opaque as bark. She didn’t seem like the woman he married…the woman he thought he knew.
“We were never meant to be together.” She said it almost casually. “You know that, don’t you?”
“I know no such thing.” Despite the trepidation slithering through him, he kept his manner firm. “You are overtired. Still recovering from the shock of the attack and now there is an onslaught of visitors. Perhaps I ought to have waited for a more opportune time to bring up—”
“Now is as good a time as any. In truth, I left things too long.”
At her dismissive tone, his temper rekindled.
“What things?” he said acidly.
A breath passed. A heartbeat.
“Our marriage was a mistake,” she said.
Pain pierced Evie to the quick as she lied to the man she loved and saw his gathering wrath. He was going to hate her before all was said and done.
I must keep him safe, no matter the cost. I cannot let my past threaten his future…his life.
The threat was no longer an abstract fear but a real one, indelibly inked in her journal.
Accidents happen when you least expect it—especially around you, dearest Evie.
Years of guilt morphed into paralyzing anxiety.
She risked a glance at her journal. How innocuous it seemed lying amidst pencils and plant cuttings, a sprinkling of soil.
Yet it was like a gunpowder charge used to blast tunnels for railways: once ignited, it could bring her life crashing down over her head.
Who knows my secret? What do they want? Why now?
The questions raged, yet she had to shove them aside to deal with her husband.
A muscle ticked along James’s jaw. “The bloody hell it was.”
“I told you from the start that I am not suited for this sort of arrangement.” This was true and allowed her to keep her gaze level. “For intimacy with another.”
“You didn’t seem to mind the intimacy when I tupped you senseless a week ago.”
Lust flamed against her skin. She couldn’t stop herself from blushing. From wanting.
“I am not referring to the physical aspect of our relationship, although it is ungentlemanly of you to mention that occasion,” she said primly.
“Pardon my rudeness. It was a reflexive reaction to being told by my wife that our marriage was a mistake.”
If sarcasm could drip, he would have flooded the greenhouse. With his hands braced on his hips and his gaze stormy, he was clearly itching for a fight. Now that…that she could give him. Marriage was an education, after all, and after nearly four years, she knew how to play upon his sensibilities.
If I must drive him away with anger, then so be it. Anything to keep him safe.
“Look at your family. Then look at us,” she said briskly. “If marrying for love is the family tradition, then it is one that skipped you.”
He jerked as if she’d slapped him. Then his outrage blazed, brighter than the sun, reminding her of her first impression of him: Apollo, the Greek god of light and order.
Golden, perfect and admired by all, James demanded the best of himself and those around him.
He valued civility and restraint, yet when crossed, his passions could be riled and lethal.
“What happened to you, Evie?” he clipped out. “What turned you cold? Was it losing the babe—”
“Perhaps that was nature’s way of rectifying something that should not have happened in the first place.”
She regretted the vile statement even as she forced her tongue around it.
Not because of the grief that lanced her heart: that festering, unwavering certainty that she had deserved to lose the precious life she’d been given.
No, her remorse was for the pain that contorted James’s features. He looked as if she’d gutted him.
I’m sorry. Forgive me. This is the only way.
Her heart bleeding, she kept her face composed.
“If that is how you feel,” James said, his hands clenched, his voice vibrating with quiet, barely leashed rage, “then there is nothing left to say. Our union was a mistake. I misjudged you. When we met, I believed you to be a different woman than the one who stands before me now.”
She took the blow wordlessly, emotionlessly. Numbness was her shield.
“However, the fact remains that we are bound for life and share a roof over our heads. As a measure of courtesy, I suggest we steer clear of one another until I can come up with a more permanent solution.”
He strode out. Only the slamming of the door, which rattled the fragile panes, betrayed his fury.
She took trembling breaths to tamp down her sobs.
A wild hope struck her: could she have possibly misread the threat?
Grabbing her spectacles from the desk, she donned them and reopened the journal to the page…
The poisonous cutting and words remained, swimming in her vision.
Merciful blooms. What am I going to do?