Page 91 of Atone, Adonis

He glanced behind him to the gathered crowd, whispering and pointing. No. It wasn’t worth it if he let them harm his wife.

“We’re leaving,” he all but growled and began to tug her toward the door.

“No, Fred. Not until this is finished.”

“It will never be finished, Jules.”

There was not enough gossip in the entire world to calm the appetites of Dorsetshire Society. And he had nothing more to give. He could and would ignore them as he’d done for a decade but his wife was off-limits. The thought of causing her more pain made him feel hollow, as if his heart, his guts, his lifeblood, had been scraped clean out of his chest.

No. He would not do it.

He turned and led her toward the entrance doors, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that if he’d had the necessary equipment, Hawthorne Hall would be ablaze by his own hand at this very moment. And then, from just beyond the edge of his shoulder, a familiar voice purred.

“There you are, Chester. Must you look so aggrieved?”

The Baroness stepped forward, giving him a smile that was all teeth. She was dressed in emerald-green silk, cut daringly low for Dorset and worn with the careless confidence that seemed to define her character in every way.

“I have no idea what you mean,” he said, turning to face the woman.

“No? I meant that just because you are a cold fish, doesn’t mean everyone else must be subjected to that look on your face. Or is that chill coming from your wife?”

Fred’s vision tunneled at the insult to Julianna and he found himself pushing his wife slightly behind him. As if he could bodily protect her from this shrew.

“What do you want?” he asked.

The Baroness’s eyes glittered. “Nothing from you. You’re too boring now, Chester, to be worth anything to me at all. Your wife on the other hand—why, she’s fascinating.”

“So it was you. You are E.S. Mallory. The editor of The Poisoned Quill. Admit it.”

The Baroness looked about the room and saw they were alone, except for Julianna standing behind him and an occasional footman passing through. She leaned forward and whispered, “Of course I am, not that there’s a thing you can do about it. But you knew that already. You did always catch on eventually.”

Fred sucked in his breath. It was all just like that long ago night, when he’d been invited here by the Hawthornes and dallied with the Baroness. When she’d taken his arm and purred into his ear. When she’d dragged him into a dark alcove while Eva was at home, lost and confused, taking reins when she shouldn’t.

He shook his head to clear it of the memory. Behind him was the muffled roar of the ballroom. In front of him the closed front door, shutting him into this world until he suffocated from its weight.

“Why?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“Because it’s fun.” She gave a little shrug. “Why do anything at all if it isn’t fun?”

“No—why me? I was too young.”

It wasn’t a question he’d planned to ask but now that he was standing here, in front of her, he found he had to know. He felt Julianna place her hand on the small of his back in support, where his had rested earlier on hers.

The Baroness considered his question before she answered. “Why collect beautiful things? Because I can and I like to own them.”

“He is not a thing,” Julianna growled behind him. “He is a person. We are all people, not objects made and destroyed for your entertainment.”

The Baroness’s smile only sharpened. “Oh do make her be quiet, Chester. Of course you belonged to me. You were my Darling of Dorset. My Local Adonis.”

The words slid into place and he realized with a shuddering horror what he’d never before understood: not only had she thought of him as her pet, her plaything, which was bad enough. But it was that the plaything had the audacity to run away that she had never forgiven.

All these years of vitriol were not because he had wounded her heart, but her vanity. Like some petulant child, she was angry because he had denied her possession of the thing she’d wanted.

Fred stared at her. She truly was a monster. A woman who had taken his boyish vulnerability, his need to be loved and wanted, his loneliness, and used it against him. Who had believed that because she had taken something from him once, she was entitled to it forever.

“And my wife?” he asked, his voice going impossibly cold. “Was she merely collateral?”

The Baroness only raised a single shoulder in a shrug. “She was too irresistible to pass up. So earnest and sincere.” Her lips curved. “I couldn’t resist.”