“When I am upset,” he told her, “I shall burst into tears, and you may exercise all your tender sensibilities in devising a way to comfort me. When I am merely trying to enjoy a play, I would prefer not to have my concentration broken by an overimaginative female begging to know what is the matter with me.”
Chloe stared at the dark outline of his profile for a few moments, her mouth open. He should have been joking. He should have turned to her, some sort of twinkle in his eye even if the darkness made it difficult to see.
He was not joking.
. . . an overimaginative female . . .
Not even an overimaginative wife.
She closed her mouth with a clicking of teeth and directed her attention to the darkness beyond the window on her side of the carriage.
“I am sorry I expressed concern,” she said. “It was foolish of me. It will not happen again.”
She half expected him to break the silence, to offer some sort of apology for his churlishness, or to show some sort of concern for the dismay and embarrassment she must have felt when she realized Lady Angela was also at the theater. But they rode the rest of the way in loud, injured silence. He did not break it and she would not. She would not break it ever again—not until he spoke to her first, anyway.
He handed her down from the carriage when they arrived home and offered his arm to escort her into the house. She took it simply because it would have been childish to refuse. Besides, the butler would have noticed and chances were the whole staff would know before morning that the duke and duchess had had a falling out.
She permitted herself to speak inside the hall since it was the butler who spoke to her. No, she told him, she did not wish for any refreshments. She was tired and intended to retire without further ado.
Fifteen or twenty minutes later, ignoring the fact that she was thirsty and a little hungry, she dismissed Mavis, climbed into bed, and burrowed beneath the covers, head and all. He was cold and unfeeling and unreasonable and bad-tempered, she decided, and a lot of other nasty things along the same lines. He was . . . no different from what he had said he would be. He had not promised any warmth, any intimacy, any real companionship in their marriage. In fact, he had promised the absence of those very things. And she had agreed quite readily. Indeed, she was the one who had first suggested their bloodless, emotionless bargain. There was no point whatsoever in being upset with him now because he had not wanted to share with her whatever it was that had disturbed him this evening—or because he had shown no concern for her upset feelings about being exposed to the one woman with whom she dreaded coming face to face.
There was no point in punishing him—and herself—by never speaking to him again.
What if he did not come tonight? She felt a bit sick at the thought—and then a bit sicker at the realization of how much she had come to depend upon his nightly lovemaking and presence in her bed all night. It was all just a physical thing, of course. It was just sex, to use his own stark, emotionless word. It was not his fault that it had become a little bit emotional too for her.
But whatever had happened at the theater to make him look so cold and remote and . . . empty? To make his muscles tense and unyielding? Something had happened, but she had promised not to ask again.
Well, she would not either. She would live her own life and let him live his. Just as they had agreed to do.
He might go to hell as far as she was concerned, she thought with shocking irreverence.
Something had happened to her, when Lady Angela Allandale arrived. The whole audience at the theater had reacted, but he had not even noticed or shown any interest when she had told him. She might be suffering dreadfully for all he cared.
She swallowed several times and willed herself not to dissolve into self-pitying tears.
17
Ralph was lying on his wife’s bed, one arm draped over his eyes, one leg bent at the knee, his foot flat on the mattress. He lay still and breathed deeply, hoping he would slip back into sleep, knowing he would not.
He had come here to apologize—for two separate wrongs he had done her. He had not noticed that Lady Angela Allandale was at the theater. He had not even been looking for her or Hitching. He had made some tentative inquiries during the day, but no one had seen either of them in town this year. They must have arrived within the last day or two—as had he and Chloe. He had not noticed when the woman had arrived at the theater tonight, and he had not noticed that Chloe was upset about it. And surely there had been some reaction from the audience at seeing Chloe and Lady Angela, in the same place. He had not noticed, and—worse—he had not shown any concern for his wife even when she had told him. He had been too wrapped up in himself.
She, on the contrary, had noticed his distress. She had asked about it and shown concern for him, both at the theater and in the carriage. And he had thanked her by biting off her head. He had offended her and hurt her. He had shut her out. But, damn it all, he wanted, he needed to be left alone. Marriage was a damnable institution.
He owed her a double apology and had come to make it.
She had been in bed when he arrived, however, facing away from him, all but the top of her head beneath the covers. It had been impossible to tell if she was awake or asleep. He had not wanted to wake her if she was sleeping. So, with a marvelous lack of logic, he had extinguished the candles, moved quietly around the bed, lain down beside her, and proceeded to have sex with her. He had even fallen asleep afterward.
Now he was wide-awake again, dealing with the dreaded sensation of having hit bottom with no further down to go. He had thought himself over such intensity of feeling. He had fought for years to level off his emotions, to avoid extremes. He had almost forgotten—until now—the needle-sharp regret he had felt at first that he was not dead, killed in battle, blown to bits with his friends, as he would have been if he had been in the front line of the cavalry charge with them. Instead, unusually, he had been in the second line and so had had a front-row view as they had disintegrated before his eyes in showers of red, just like the most spectacular of fireworks displays at Vauxhall.