Page 81 of Kathryn

“That is not true. You were an affectionate, loving little boy—so sweet and you doted on me—”

“Before I walked in on you fucking a servant!” For a moment it looked as though she would slap him as she had done the last time. Indeed, he wanted her to do it; he wanted to see self-loathing settle on her frivolous features.

But her fisted hands stayed firmly at her sides. “We are talking about you, not—”

“No. You are talking about me. My marriage—my life—is none of your concern.”

“You have a second chance. A chance to be happy and—”

“I am happy.” Or at least he had been until last night and his wife had made a good start to destroying everything. But he was hardly going to tell his mother that.

“Do not ignore this opportunity for happiness, Gerrit. Make an effort to know Katie—to be her friend and her lover. The road you are choosing to travel—Boon’s road—only ends in unhap—”

“Your carriage awaits you, madam.” Gerrit walked past her and stopped at the door, which he opened.

She heaved a sigh and walked heavily toward him. When she came abreast of him, she stopped.

Gerrit deliberately looked away.

After a moment, she walked past him out of the room.

He shut the door with a definitive snap, his hands shaking. That was his mother, all over again, driving him half-mad with her emotional demands and incessant meddling. Thank God she was leaving. Now the household could finally settle down to some semblance of normalcy.

A memory of last night, of the new regime in his wife’s bedroom, struck him like a sharp punch to the groin.

Gerrit scowled and dropped into his chair. Christ. How was he supposed to do without their nights together?

***

Rather than miss Betje less as time went on, Katie found she yearned for her flighty, cheerful mother-in-law more with each day that passed.

The dowager’s last words echoed in her thoughts, as well. Please love my son, Katie. His soul is suffering, and he needs love so very desperately.

Did he? Because he did not seem to be a man who was suffering to Katie. Indeed, in the five days and four nights since she had instituted their new regime in the bedchamber, Dulverton had not changed a jot. He still ignored her at dinner and in the library at night and disappeared all day, every day. And he still visited her every night and executed his duty, generally taking less than five minutes to achieve his release. Which was more than she could say for her own satisfaction. That was something she had to see to herself, to her intense mortification.

Those delicious nights with her husband had been the only good part of her marriage. And she had been the one to destroy it. Katie couldn’t believe she’d been so misguided as to believe that Dulverton would argue with her when she’d told him their couplings should no longer be filled with passion. She’d been stupid to think her demand would start a discussion between them. A normal man would ask why she would make such a ridiculous demand. Not Dulverton.

Quit blaming him for your asinine idea. Apologize and tell him you’ve changed your mind.

No. She couldn’t. Whenever she envisioned eating her pride and crawling to Dulverton on hands and knees—metaphorically speaking—images of the lovely Anne Wilson and her equally lovely children flooded her head.

And those images seeded her brain like a fertile field, producing a crop of bitter jealousy.

No, she would not apologize and beg. She could not.

And she knew that he wouldn’t either.

Which meant that what they had right now was all they would ever have in their marriage. It was what they had both bargained for, after all, and it was time that Katie learned to live with it.

“Your Grace?”

Katie turned at the sound of Becky’s voice and saw her maid holding up one of her favorite morning gowns. She shook her head. “I think I’ll go for a ride,” she said, not wanting to sit plying her needle alone in the drawing room. She smiled at her friend. “Today I’ll introduce myself to some of my tenants.”

Becky grinned. “That is a grand idea.”

Twenty minutes later Katie was garbed in her peacock blue habit and cantering away from Briarly. Excitement filled her as she reached the fork in the path. The righthand path was the one she’d taken with Dulverton—and she already knew it led to his mistress—so she took the left fork toward an ancient preserve called Echo Forest. The word forest was only a trifle aggrandizing. Although the collection of trees was not extensive, the species that lived in the area were the massive sorts of yews one thought of when reading Arthurian tales.

Riding into the wood, there was an immediate hush and the temperature dropped sharply, the latticed canopy overhead holding in the moisture and filtering the light.