Did he think he hadn’t the right to offer affection to her? Or could he not bring himself to do it, since he felt honor-bound or pride-bound to despise her for betraying him?
Or was pride a factor at all when vigorous sex on the carpet was a possibility?
Regardless, she understood ambivalence all too well.
Suddenly the memory of a little pink scrap of ribbon tucked into a box was like a razor cut across her heart.
If she had found him kissing another woman in the garden on their wedding night, would she ever have forgiven him?
She just didn’t think so.
And that was the crux of it.
Would bedding her at last satisfy him? After all, she’d been an acquisition. Something to partake.
This thought rang a little falsely. She nurtured it anyway, because somehow it seemed that if she could fan the flames of righteous anger she could protect herself from being hurt.
“Are you...” He stopped. Pressed his lips together.
“Yes. I’m very good. Thank you,” she said, with almost absurd formality, as if they were sitting across from each other at a tea party. “And you?”
His expression remained pensive. Absorbed. His eyes never left her face.
A long moment later he said, “I’m very good.” His voice was a husk.
Finally, absently, he swiped his hands through his hair, pushing it away from his sweaty forehead.
Neither one of them stood yet.
They sat together quietly, listening to each other breathing. Listening to the fire pop and snap.
“He was my brother’s tutor.”
He went rigid at once. His eyes flared in wary surprise.
“You never met him,” she added. More faintly. “He was living for a time with the family in the house behind us. And he left to teach in Africa.”
It had taken a lot of her courage to say that.
They stared at each other again. Her heart jabbed at her painfully.
“All right,” he said finally. Carefully.
This was the measure and nature of the pain between them, she understood. Of the damage they’d inflicted on each other. That these questions and revelations could only be approached like shrapnel embedded in the flesh. One shard at a time.
She didn’t know what would be left when they were done. Perhaps they never would be done.After all, her husband’s leg retained the souvenir of the time he’d saved a man’s life. And in rough weather, he limped.
Perhaps the best solution was indeed to put an ocean between them.
“I’ll just say good-night now, shall I?” she said softly, but firmly.
She wanted to be alone, so she could take inventory of herself, now that she was forever changed. There wasn’t enough room on the floor for her, and for him, and all of her tumultuous feelings.
He was on his feet at once, his hand extended to her to help her up.
Her hand vanished into his, which was warm and rough and as oddly, immediately reassuring as his coat.
He glanced down at it, his face suddenly bemused. Like a boy, who’d been handed something valuable he wasn’t certain he had the right to touch.