Dev gripped her arm again and tugged her down the hall. “I didn’t have to. He knew I wanted to talk to you. And now if you’ll excuse us, Mr. Osborne.”
Determined not to be forced anywhere, she wrenched her arm free again and stormed into the dining room—the nearest empty chamber. No acting was required to keep her face pulled tight in fury as she turned on him. “I will not be spied on in my own home by that—that—”
“At a loss for words, are you, darling?” Though he smiled, it snapped and sparked. He advanced so quickly she retreated by sheer instinct, until the table’s edge bit into her hip. Dev rested his arm on the back of the chair beside her, boxing her in. “Get used to it. I intend to keep him around.”
Perhaps that too was part of Slade’s purpose in announcing her. He had made himself more indispensable. Marietta rested a hand on Dev’s chest to keep some space between them. “And what if I don’t want him around?”
Dev snorted, gruff and unamused, as he dropped a hand to her waist and yanked her closer. “A strange question, given the rumors flying about the two of you. Really, Mari. Going to the theater with him?”
What could she do but lift her chin and force haughty amusement into her gaze as she would have done before her world shifted? “Marietta Arnaud Hughes on the arm of a—” Casting around for the right words, Slade’s own found her tongue. “—two-bit detective? Laughable.”
“I’m not laughing.” His hand slid up her back, light but unyielding. Each point of contact seeming to brand her, to claim that she was his. And she had no room to argue. She had given him that, given him the right to touch and demand. She had forfeited herself to him. She shuddered, but he either assumed it from pleasure or just didn’t care. His nose traced her cheek. “I didn’t wait four years to call you my own just to hear your name linked with someone else’s.”
He knew how she hated it when he did that, referring to her years of marriage to Lucien as nothing but a nuisance to his courtship. “Dev—”
“Why did you do something so foolish? You know how people talk. Were you angry with me, is that it? Because we had to withdraw from the Ellicotts’?”
A shifting shadow in the hallway caught her eye. She could see only the edge of Slade’s sleeve, but it was enough to make the anger twist its way into self-loathing. Why did he have to witness her shame? Again?
To Dev’s question she shook her head. “Why would I be angry over something to which I am so accustomed? Lucien did the same thing all the—”
“Do not compare me to him!”
She saw Slade slide forward even as she drew her head back. No doubt he was ready to spring into action if Dev’s hands turned to fists, and for a moment she feared they would. But then she looked in his eyes.
Beneath the anger pulsed pain, strong enough that for a moment she remembered only how she had loved him so recently, and how he loved her still. He had been wrong, so very wrong, to try to lure her away from Lucien, but that did not make his feelings any less real, did it?
“Dev.” She rested her palm against his cheek and wished life could be as simple as marrying him and being happy. “I meant only that you have the same responsibilities and I understand them.”
He drew in a long breath, and some of the fire went out of his eyes. Then he bent down, trailed his lips down her neck, and held her close.
She dared another glance at the doorway. Her gaze collided with Slade’s, but she read no relief in it, certainly no approval. He didn’t nod, didn’t smile, didn’t even smirk. He just blinked once, his nostrils flared. And then he disappeared from view. Gone without a sound.
A tremor started in her stomach and swept its way upward, lodging in her throat.
“Darling.” Dev anchored a hand at the base of her neck, under the lace net holding her hair. “Forgive me if I am cross. It is only my impatience making me so.” He tilted her head, kissed her jaw. Not so long ago, delight would have raced through her veins instead of ice. “I hate anyone thinking for even a moment that you belong to someone else. You’re mine.”
His arms were iron bands around her, but she could escape them if she must. The ones around her spirit, though…how was she to break free of those?
His hand moved down her back again and settled at her waist. “Commission yourself a new gown, darling. Something breathtaking and exquisite. We’ll find the most well-attended gathering, and you’ll wear it there with me. We’ll set the wagging tongues aright.”
A new gown. A ball. A life that held no shine anymore. But if he would leave it at that, then she would agree to the wasted expense. She pulled away, knowing her smile was tight. “All right.”
“Mari.” The hand on her neck held her in place and forced her to look up at him. “No doubt you know this, but…if we need to wed sooner. If you are…”