“I know. But something more could have come to mind.” With his free hand, he touched her cheek under the mottled bruise, his frown fierce. “I will find him if I have to question every low-life ruffian in Baltimore. I promise you that.”
She turned her face away. “What does it matter? He stole nothing, the scrapes and bruises will fade—”
“He hurt you, and he will pay for it.” He said it with such superiority, as if he weren’t every bit as guilty of hurting her, and so much more deeply. “He put marks on your skin and shadows in your eyes. He interfered with our plans—and Mother said your new gown is perfect.”
Marietta hadn’t even looked at it. “A few weeks’ delay, that is all.”
Simple words, but something must have come through in her tone. Dev dropped her hand and put a few inches between them on the divan. “What is the matter with you lately, Mari?”
She lifted her chin and met his accusing glare. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Like blazes you don’t. You haven’t been acting yourself, not since you brought that woman into the house.”
“ ‘That woman’?” She pushed to her feet, knowing her cheeks had flushed scarlet. “That woman is my sister and friend.”
He followed her up, where of course he towered over her. “You have changed.”
“That has nothing to do with Barbara.”
“Ha!” He pivoted away but then spun back on her, a finger leveled at her chest. “Perhaps she isn’t the cause, but she is certainly proof of it. My Mari would never, never have taken her in. Certainly wouldn’t sit around for hours listening to her pious prattle without filling my ears with complaints about it later. What has happened to you?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Perhaps Barbara was indeed evidence of her change, but the start…the start had come well before. A bit, even, before she learned the full truth. “You know well what happened, Dev. One sin too many finally opened my eyes to them all.”
He expelled an angry hiss of breath. A moment later his hands closed around her shoulders, forcing her eyes open again. “That’s what all this has been about? Your guilt?”
Wrenching free of his hands did nothing to erase the feel of them. “Don’t mock me. Perhaps you can do whatever you please without feeling the pangs of your conscience, but I cannot.”
His snort might as well have been a slap. “Since when?”
She turned away, unable to face the truth of his accusation. “Not long enough. I admit that. But I have changed, and I will be a better person now.”
“Better? You call this better?” With a few strides, he stood before her again, fire dancing in his eyes. “Arguing with your intended at every turn, going behind my back to invite guests to stay here of whom you know I would disapprove, disregarding our plans for your debut, stupidly going about the city on your own—this strikes you as an improvement?”
Marietta folded her arms across her chest. “Funny that you name the things I would always have done. I have never suffered a man to dictate my life.” Even when listening to her father or brothers would have been wise.
He spat out a curse, gripped her elbow, and yanked her closer. “You have never acted this way with me before, never. We have always understood each other, and now you tell me you want to change? That, what, you do not like the Mari you have always been, knowing well how I love her?”
Her stomach knotted and rose to block her throat. Doyle’s image swam before her mind’s eye. The hate-filled eyes, the unkempt beard. She could feel again the pressure cutting off her air, taste again the sting of blood.
Dev gave her arm a punctuating shake that bit like brick. “And what if I don’t like this new Marietta? Hmm? What if all you’ve done with your infernal turn to piety is lose what set you apart?”
When he let go of her elbow, she staggered back, hating how her knees shook. “Then I guess you can be grateful nothing is official between us. If you no longer like me, then go find some other, more docile female. One not so afflicted by this ‘infernal piety.’ ”
“Mari.” His tone was heavy as lead with warning, but she couldn’t look in his eyes. Not now.
She waved him away with an arm no steadier than her knees. “If you don’t like me, then get out of my house.”
“Marietta.”
Now the warning rang of steel. She moved to the door, more a stumble than a stride. “Ah, right. Your house. If that is what you want, I will sign over the deed and show myself out this very day.” She wrenched the door open.
“Enough.” Somehow he ended up in front of her in the hallway, halting her with hands, gentle now, on her shoulders. “Darling. I’m so sorry. I should have realized how upset you still are by the attack.”