Page 7

"How dare you?" she hissed.

"How dare I? After years of you acting as a free woman, are you truly surprised at my assumption?"

"You dare besmirch my honor?"

He shrugged in answer.

He wasn't even bothered that he was insulting her.

It pained her that this was the state of their marriage.

But not because his words hurt; they didn't. They made her sad.

She should be offended. She should be beside herself at the harsh treatment by her husband.

Yet she wasn't.

It was a mark of how terrible their marriage had gotten.

"I am not the loose, unprincipled harlot you think me to be," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "Even if I were, you made it clear that if I became with child not of your seed, you would divorce me, scandal be damned. Those were your exact words, if I am not mistaken."

Her husband had the grace to flinch.

All is not lost. If he, too, was ashamed of his prior cruelty.

The harsh words Sutton had uttered that night made him flinch.

They had been the last words he had ever spoken to her until tonight.

They must have stung deeply for her to still remember them word for word.

Sometimes he thought—nay, hoped—that night had never happened. No, not just that night, but those weeks of courtship, that ball before their wedding, the wedding itself.

He wished all of that was just a feverish dream he had failed to forget upon waking. A recurring nightmare that wouldn't leave him alone.

Except it wasn't. His wife, the woman standing right in front of him, was living proof of that.

Seven years since he last saw his wife.

Seven years ago tonight, to be exact.

And nonetheless, he remembered that night like it was yesterday. The way the firelight framed her golden hair, the way her nightgown clung to her curves—the way she shook like a leaf, frightened of the mere possibility of him touching her.

That was the night he had left her at Sutton Hall and departed for London, convinced that his meek little bride would sit in his country seat waiting for his return.

Temperance was not exaggerating when she said they had both made mistakes. Their entire marriage had been one disaster after the next.

"Besides," she said, her voice dropping quieter, though her gaze remained locked on his, "it is not I who smells of rose water tonight."

Marie's perfume. Sutton jerked his head, catching the faint scent clinging to his lapel. He hadn't even noticed it was there.

He clenched his jaw. "I have no interest in an heir."

Lie.

"I have no interest in starting marital relations with you."

Another lie.