“I cannot answer for my husband,” Kate said tightly.Some of her misery must have shown on her face, because Charlotte blinked in confusion.
“What is it?”
Kate shook her head.“Nothing.You have been very kind, and I wish you well.”
“But we will see each other again soon,” Charlotte said, brightening.“I shall inform Wroth myself.”
Kate forced herself to assent, but she had a sinking feeling that she would never visit the Wycliffe home or see Charlotte again.Indeed, just as the lovely blonde was making her exit, Kate caught a glimpse of Grayson’s face across the room, and it boded ill for all of her chances.
Perhaps it was time for her to give up.
Grayson stalked into the town house, oblivious to the fact that his wife had to hurry to keep pace with him.Ignoring the butler’s greeting, he strode toward the stairs without even waiting for her to join him.They were in the habit of going straight up to their rooms upon their return from the evening’s engagements, for Grayson was usually on the verge of bursting the fall of his pantaloons.
Not tonight.Even though he dismissed his valet as usual, Grayson did not feel the throbbing need that had been plaguing him nightly when he entered his room.He was too angry.Throwing off his coat, he tossed it against the wall and cursed under his breath.
That idiot Wycliffe!How dare he?Grayson couldn’t remember the last time anyone had taunted him, but Wycliffe… Although Grayson wanted to smash a fist into the earl’s smug expression, he had shrugged off the sly insinuations that he was as infatuated with Kate as the earl was with Charlotte.
Grayson cursed again.He never would be guilty of the fawning devotion that characterized the Wycliffe union.Nor would Kate ever behave in such a nauseating fashion, thankfully.
And yet, Wycliffe’s knowing smile had touched a nerve, that fear of his own weakness.Tugging at his neckcloth, he walked into Kate’s adjoining room, scaring her mouse of a maid into flight She was seated at her mirrored table, calmly removing her jewelry, but, for once, Grayson barely noticed the way the candlelight gleamed on her satiny hair and her bare shoulders.
“Did you see that pompous ass Wycliffe?”he growled, throwing the white linen to the floor in a heap.
“Yes, I met him,” Kate answered softly.“His wife is lovely.”
“Charlotte?Who knows what she sees in him?The man is an idiot.”
Kate stiffened, but Grayson ignored it, too intent upon that upstart Wycliffe to do anything except stalk the length of the room in outrage.“You should have heard him prattling on about true love like some romantic schoolgirl.It’s enough to make a grown man vomit.”
“They do seem to be very much in love.”
“Love?What an absurd label for something as simple as shared interests and intellects.They have companionship, nothing more,” Grayson said, denying his suspicions that the Wycliffes possessed some secret he had yearned for himself.
“Perhaps you are simply piqued because Charlotte chose another man.”
It took a moment for Kate’s words to penetrate his rage.“What?”Grayson whirled toward her.
She turned to face him, her beautiful eyes clear and direct, as always.“Rumor has it that you were enamored of her.”
“Charlotte?”Grayson asked, contemptuously.“I found her witty and refreshing, but I would hardly call that being enamored.”
It was difficult to believe that he had thought the vicar’s daughter would make a suitable wife and that he had searched for a bride with whom he could share a similar friendship.For once in his life, Grayson’s finely laid plans had gone awry, for he felt none of those things for the woman he had wed.
He stared at Kate in shock as the realization hit him.She was intelligent, yes, and beautiful and elegant and honest and all the things he had wanted.But in no way did his vision of a companionable relationship resemble the mindless, driving need he felt for her.
He must have stood there gaping while the full force of his miscalculation hit home, for she pursed her lips in a parody of his famous disdain.
“Oh, that’s right.You don’t believe in love.But do you know something, Grayson?Just because you don’t give something your lordly approval, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.Theirs obviously is a love match, and I must say I think it better to marry for affection than simply to acquire a broodmare.”
Grayson’s mouth twitched.What the devil was she talking about?“A broodmare?”
“Oh, please,” she said, waving a small hand as if annoyed with him.“I’ve heard that’s what you were looking for in a wife, a simple country girl to provide you an heir and little else.”
“What?”In his outrage, Grayson forgot that the desire to set up a nursery had started him thinking about marriage.It was so far removed from the situation in which he now found himself that he could only view her accusation as ludicrous.
“Isn’t that why you come to me every night after scowling at me all day, to get me with child?”
Although there had been a time when Grayson would not have blinked at such a motive, Kate’s cold-blooded description of what passed between them made him turn stone-still.He came to her because he had to, because he could not deny himself, because this slender young woman had reduced his powerful will to nothing.
