A new emotion invaded her, a fast-spreading, horrified anger. She'd been played for a dupe. He had never been interested in anything but her money. All the sweet, joyful hours they had shared was but his way of insuring that she did not change her mind on him. She slammed down the brush.
“This is very new to me. I have been under the impression that we were going to live together after our wedding. My mother and I have authorized a good deal of financial outlay to secure us an apartment and a staff in Paris, to ship over my furniture, to”—suddenly she could not bring herself to mention the érard piano that she had ordered for him—“I'm sure you get the idea. Important decisions have been made on the assumption that I could trust you, that you have acted in good faith.”
Calmly, he listened to her tirade, her lecture. Then he turned around and picked up a porcelain figurine of a giggling girl from the vanity table. For one terrifying moment, his eyes burned, and she was sure he was going to throw the thing at her. But he set it down, without a sound. “Have you acted in good faith?”
She opened her mouth, but her reply withered before his stare. She had no idea he could look at anyone, much less at her, like that. It was the gaze of Achilles the man-killer just before he slaughtered Hector, a gaze that held nothing but blood rage.
It scared her all the more that he seemed otherwise as collected and civil as he had ever been.
“I . . . I don't know what you are talking about.”
“Don't you? I find it surprising. How do you forget your own schemes?”
The deafening cacophony in her head was the crashing of her happiness, that grand, shiny edifice that she had built upon a foundation of quicksand. She swallowed, trying to stay above the bog of despair.
“I'm curious about one thing. Where did you find a forger? Did you have to wade into a den of confidence artists? Or are they to be had everywhere in Bedfordshire?”
“My gamekeeper at Briarmeadow was a forger in his youth,” she answered numbly, not realizing until it was too late that she had negated his last doubts, if he had any.
“I see. Quite clever of you.”
“How . . . how long have you known?” she asked, as composedly as she could.
“Since yesterday afternoon.”
She reeled. When you make a pact with the devil, her father had often told her, the devil is the only one who comes out ahead. Would that she'd listened.
He smiled coldly. “Excellent. I'm glad we cleared any and all misunderstandings about our respective good faith on this matter,” he said. “I'm sure you understand now why I will be leaving without you.”
Intellectually, perhaps. But viscerally, all she knew was that she loved him and he loved her.
“I know you are angry with me now,” she said, her voice as tentative as a mouse tiptoeing around a cat. “Would it be all right if I joined you in Paris in two weeks, when you—”
“No.”
The finality of his response chilled her. But she would not give up so easily. “You are right, of course. Two weeks does not amount to much time. Would two—”
“No.”
“But we are married!” she cried in frustration. “We can't carry on like this.”
“I beg to differ. We certainly can. Separate lives mean separate lives.”
She hated pleading. She made sure she always dealt from a position of strength, even with her own mother. But what else could she do now? “Please don't. Please don't decide all of our future this moment. Please! Is there anything I can do to change your mind?”
The contempt in his eyes made her feel like something that had just oozed out of a badly mildewed wall. “You can start by offering me an apology, which both decency and good manners require here.”
She could have slapped herself. Of course he'd want her to grovel for forgiveness. Her pride, large and thorny, was difficult to swallow, but she forced it. For him. Because she loved him and she could not lose him. “I'm sorry. I really am terribly, terribly sorry.”
He was silent for a moment. “Are you? Are you really? Or are you only sorry that you are caught?”
What was the difference? If she hadn't been caught, would an apology even be needed? “For what I did,” she said, because that was probably the answer he wanted to hear.
“Stop lying to me.” He said each word separately— Stop. Lying. To. Me.—as if he ground his teeth as he spoke.
“But I really am sorry.” Her voice trembled and she was powerless over it. “I am. Please believe me.”
“You are not. You are sorry that I won't continue to be your dupe, that I won't take you at your word, and that you will be left behind with none of that perfect married life that you thought you were getting.”