She sank down onto it, shivering, and droppedher face into her hands. Half naked but engulfed by her husband’s greatcoat. He’d whipped it off and surrounded her with it.
She could feel him gently adjusting it, tucking it around her shoulders.
She submitted to being tended to by her tormentor.
And then he must have stepped away.
The ensuing silence seemed to ring interminably.
She could hear her own breath, shuddering in and out into her palms.This must be what it feels like to be mad. I’ve gone mad, she thought. How horrifying. How humiliating.
Howliberating.
It was all that was left to her. She had no weapons, no resources at all of her own. And more’s the pity, it simply wasn’t in her to just surrender. Her downfall would clearly be messy and protracted.
What was he doing now, in this silence?
Staring at her in horror?
After what seemed an endless amount of time, she heard the unmistakable sound of the bung being pulled from the little decanter.
Then the gurgle of brandy into a glass.
“I don’t want brandy,” she said into her hands.
“I see.”
He paused.
“Whiskey, then?”
This was almost funny. She had never forgotten that about him: the flashes of dry, incisive, irreverent humor. It took one by surprise. She hadonce found it as unexpected and delightful as a sudden brisk breeze in a closed room.
“I don’t need to bemedicated.”
“Fair enough,” he said almost equably. “But I don’t suppose there’s any dishonor in numbing the shock of being reminded you have a husband.”
And what a husband. An imperious, unyielding bastard of a husband.
“Or in taking the edge off of spending a night in less than hospitable accommodations. Despite the clear benefit of the fact that a number of children named Alexandra will likely be picking pockets in St. Giles in the near future.”
This was sounding perilously close to conciliatory.
“Dishonor.”The word was muffled by her hands. “Of course. My greatest concern at the moment.”
But then, for Brightwall, she thought cynically, honor was never a small concern. And why should it be? He was an edifice. An institution. He had earned every bit of it.
He’d protected her dignity and modesty immediately with his coat. Likely he’d suspected she could hardly sustain more regret.
But then, wasn’t he renowned for always knowing what to do? For thinking and acting quickly?
Another silence stretched.
It was blessedly, blessedly quiet here at The Grand Palace on the Thames, she would give it that.
She was loath to look up from the safe darkness of her own palms.
“Inside coat pocket,” he informed her.