Chapter 18 #2
“You heard me.” Beneath her lowered brows, Evie’s eyes blazed with passion. “I read her note. I know she wants to get better acquainted with you—to discuss your future together.”
“Now wait one minute—”
“She was certainly dressed for the occasion.”
“Christ.” He threw his hands up. “What does her bloody dress have to do with anything?”
“It has to do with everything. She sent you a flirtatious note. She dressed in a provocative gown, one she was practically falling out of, and arranged for the two of you to be alone at a cozy supper. I might not have caught you in flagrante...yet. But the intent was there.”
Rage surged, darkening the edges of his vision.
“How dare you,” he thundered. “Do you think so little of me that you would accuse me of such sordid trifling?”
“It is not you. It’s her. I know what I saw—”
“Devil take you, Evie. I am done.”
He paced away from her and shoved at a chair, sent it toppling over before whirling to face his wife. She was wide-eyed, white-lipped…and beautiful. A beautiful stranger. One who did not know him—at all. Even as fury had a stranglehold, it was despair that knocked the breath from him.
“This isn’t about Lady Vernon. It is about you,” he said. “About the contempt you hold for your own husband. How long have you despised me? How long have you thought me a man without honor—a scoundrel capable of breaking his word and his vows?”
Evie wetted her lips.
“You had the right of it after all.” Weariness dragged at him like a sodden cloak.
“I am an idiot for believing that, despite everything, there was hope for us. How could there be a future when you hold so little feeling for me? At least now I understand your indifference. From the start, you did not want this marriage, but fool that I was, I thought I could win you over. That you had a heart to win over. Now I see that I was wrong, and you were right. You don’t care about our marriage or me.
You are not suited for intimacy, and I am done trying to make this work. ”
He turned to go.
She grabbed his arm.
“No. That’s not true.”
He steeled himself against her pleading. “It is over, Evie.”
“I do care. I care too much.”
Clenching his jaw, he shook her off. “It is too late.”
He headed for the door. Evie somehow beat him to it, barring his way.
“Please listen,” she begged. “I know my behavior tonight was unseemly, but it wasn’t because I doubted you.
I know you are a man of honor…how could I not when you married me because of it?
When I see, day after day, how good and noble you are.
To your family and friends, to the constituents you want to help. And most of all, to me.”
He quelled the quickening in his chest. He couldn’t allow himself to be pulled back into the cycle of hope and disappointment. He was done.
“I am not what you need,” he said flatly. “Perhaps the reverse is true as well. We have had our chances and failed to make each other happy.”
A tear trickled down her cheek.
“You are everything to me.” Her voice hitched. “The failures are mine, don’t you see? I have never deserved you, and I knew that from the start. That is why I refused you…because I knew I was not good enough for you.”
That had to be a lie, for it made no bloody sense.
“There is no need to grasp at straws,” he said curtly. “Let us give each other the courtesy of ending this with honesty.”
“I am being honest. I swear it, James. Why are you so dashed oblivious?”
The flare of temper, the way she glowered at him, oddly convinced him more than her words or tears. This side of Evie he was familiar with: the forthright and sensible woman who suffered no fools.
“You cannot possibly still harbor the illusion that I married you out of honor,” he said bluntly. “We settled that years ago. Emphatically, I might add.”
The words slipped out, and he cursed himself for bringing up their passionate interlude in the greenhouse.
The first time he’d tupped her outside a bedchamber—and the first time they’d exchanged words of love.
The memory had snuck up on him, but perhaps she’d forgotten.
Perhaps she would think he was referencing something else, a conversation—
“Making love doesn’t settle anything. We are living proof of that.”
Her honesty riveted him. Yet he remained wary that this was yet another diversion that would lead nowhere. Braced, he said nothing and waited.
“I have never felt like your equal, James.” Her manner was steady, even if her voice quavered. “From the start, I knew that you were—that you are—too good for me.”
“That is nonsense,” he said dismissively. “Your family is as old as mine. And you know I’ve never cared about the financial arrangements of our union.”
“The fact that you’ve never held my lack of a dowry against me is what makes you so good,” she said wryly. “But I am not referring to social status or even wealth.”
“Then what, Evie? What is this perceived difference between us?”
“I am not a good person,” she whispered. “Not like you, James. You are perfect in every way.”
He studied her pale features and realized that she was in earnest.
Flummoxed, he said, “I am far from perfect. And you are a fine woman, Evie. Why would you think otherwise?”
“I…I just do.” Gold flecks shimmered in her eyes.
“I knew from the start that I didn’t deserve you, but I selfishly married you anyway.
Because I couldn’t help myself. You were everything I wanted—honorable, intelligent, and kind.
Not to mention absurdly attractive. Why would a fellow like that, who could have any woman he pleased, want a fat, plain lady’s companion with nothing to offer? ”
His instinct was to argue that she was none of those things. Yet he felt a prickling awareness as he viewed their past interactions through this distorted lens. Was this why Evie had acted so hot and cold? Not because of indifference or faltering affection…but because of her own insecurities?
“Even if you felt this way initially,” he said, “surely those feelings changed with time? We have been married nearly four years. If I failed to demonstrate my regard for you—”
“You didn’t. You have always shown me the greatest care and respect. I was the one who failed, don’t you see?”
“No. I don’t see...”
Then the realization dawned, puncturing his anger. He hadn’t been fighting his wife, but a shadow—the ghost of grief and loss. Tenderness welled, and he didn’t stop to think before closing the gap between them. When he took her hand, he found it cold and trembling.
“Evie, we did discuss this recently. Losing the babe was a tragedy. But neither of us could have done anything to prevent it.”
“I know that now. Intellectually speaking, at least.” She drew a shuddering breath. “Yet there is a part of me that wonders…did this happen because of something I did? Not during the pregnancy, perhaps, but in my past. Was this my comeuppance for mistakes I’ve made, sins I may have committed—”
Unable to bear her self-recrimination, he pulled her into his arms.
“There now,” he murmured against her hair while she wept. “That is foolishness talking. In the absence of reason, the heart searches for fanciful answers.”
“You are the b-best thing that has ever happened to me, James. And I am afraid. So afraid of ruining our m-marriage the way I ruin everything else.”
Her aching confession wrenched his heart. He bled for her—for the unnecessary burden she’d been carrying all this time—even as relief blasted through him.
She was never indifferent. She was afraid. Afraid…because she cares too much.
Women, he marveled, were a mystery, and his wife especially. Even if he lived to be a hundred, he would never understand the workings of her mind. As long as she was his, however, he could make things work.
Stroking her back, he said, “You haven’t broken anything that cannot be fixed.”
“I am sorry that I acted like a madwoman.” Her voice was muffled against his chest. “I let jealousy get the better of me and jeopardized your campaign. It was poorly done, and I hope you will forgive me.”
Her sincerity washed away the residue of his anger.
He tipped her chin up. “I do, darling, but I am not the one to whom you owe an apology.”
A hint of mutiny entered Evie’s expression.
“As my behavior was unbecoming, I will apologize to Lady Vernon,” she said stiffly. “However, I am not wrong about her, James. Her designs upon you are more than political. A wife knows these things.”
It was small of him to enjoy Evie’s jealousy.
He would chastise himself later. For now, he allowed himself to take secret delight in her possessiveness—in the revelation that it was an abundance, rather than a lack of, feeling that drove her actions.
While they still had problems to work through, he could fix them knowing that he was not alone in this marriage.
Evie was as invested in their relationship as he was; he mattered to her.
Mattered so much, in fact, that she’d boldly staked her claim.
He understood her reaction, for he’d never been one for sharing. If the situations were reversed, he might have acted as impetuously as she had. And probably with a great deal of violence.
He caressed her cheek. “You have nothing to worry about, trust me.”
“I do trust you. But Lady Vernon had better beware if she tries to take what is mine.”
Evie huffed, a dangerous sparkle in her eyes.
Only she could make jealousy look adorable, and he couldn’t resist the lure of her pout.
He kissed her, and her sweetness unleashed his hunger.
She pressed against him, soft and yielding and needy.
She moaned, fisting his lapels as he deepened their connection.
The wet, hot mating of their mouths set off a fever in his blood.
A condition for which there was only one cure.
My wife. My Evie. Always mine.