The terror in her voice left me pulling back. The man breathed long enough to curse.
Keelynn’s arms came aroundhisshoulders.
She touchedhisface.
Kissedhischeek.
“What do you need, my love?”
My love.
He shrugged her off every time she tried to help him, and all I could do was sit there and hear those words fall from her lips over and over again.
She hadn’t chosen me.
I’d been forced on her.
She’d chosenRobert.
24
I could hearKeelynn and Robert downstairs in the parlor. Their mumbled conversation. An occasional giggle.
The worst was the silence.
If they weren’t speaking or laughing, they were doing something else. And I wasn’t foolish enough to think that they were staring into each other’s eyes. He carried her up the stairs like a groom on his wedding night. Only he wasn’t the feckin’ groom. I was.
They had been together.
Perhaps nottogethertogether.
But Robert sure as hell had put his filthy mouth against my wife’s beautiful—now swollen—lips.Her hair fell free from its pins. The front of her shift wasn’t tucked in as it should be. The sides of her skirts were folded in on themselves and—
Dammit. I should have killed him at dinner.
Should have let him choke and die, then I wouldn’t have to see him try to weasel his way into my wife’s bedroom, touch her with his fat, bumbling fingers and—
“I hope I’m not interrupting,” I called, knowing damn well that I was.
Robert stepped away from my wife and told her goodnight. When he turned, he flashed me a look of such unveiled hatred that I nearly respected him for it.
“Goodnight!” I shouted.
He walked with the stiff gait of a man who hadn’t found release, and I had never been happier to see someone so uncomfortable.
The closer I drew to Keelynn, the stronger the scent of Robert’s cologne on her skin became.My hands itched to climb up her arm, to force the memory of Robert’s touch from her mind, to replace his scent with mine.
Instead, I hid my hands in my pockets and said, “You and I need to talk.”
Keelynn closed the door in my face.
I evanesced into her room, making myself comfortable on the edge of the windowsill in case she asked me to stay. We were married, after all. “Slamming a door in a man’s face when he’s speaking is terribly rude.”
“So is trying to kill our host,” she snapped.
“Kill our host? Such a terrible accusation.”
“You promised to be a gentleman.”