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Not quickly enough, though. He had caught it, in the flicker of time before she masked it. He’d seen it, in her eyes, just as he’d heard it in her voice a moment ago: sorrow…pity.
And his heart twisted and churned into rage—with himself, because he’d somehow said too much, and with her, because she’d been too quick—quicker than he—to perceive what he’d said, and worse, what he’d felt.
But he was not a child, Dain reminded himself. He wasn’t helpless. No matter what he’d unwittingly revealed to his wife, his character had not changed. He had not changed, not a whit.
In Jessica, he had found a good thing, that was all, and he meant to make the most of it. He would allow her to make him happy, certainly. He would let himself be flayed alive and boiled in oil, however, before he’d allow his wife to pity him.
Chapter 15
Andrews entered then, and the first footman, Joseph, with him. His Lordship’s beefsteak was set before him, and his ale. Andrews cut the steak while Jessica, who had wanted to perform that small service, sat uselessly in her chair, pretending to eat a breakfast that tasted like sawdust and was about as easily swallowed.
She—the expert on interpreting men—scarcely understood her husband at all. Even last night, when she’d discovered he was not vain, as she’d believed, and that the love of women had not come easily to him, as she’d supposed, she had not guessed the extent of the trouble.
She had merely reminded herself that many men couldn’t see themselves clearly. When Bertie, for instance, looked into a mirror, he thought a man with a brain looked back. When Dain looked into his, he somehow missed the full extent of his physical beauty. Odd in a connoisseur, but then, men were not altogether consistent creatures.
As to the love of women, Jessica had never been exactly thrilled at the prospect of falling in love with him herself. It was understandable, then, that other women—even hardened professionals—might decide he was more than they cared to tackle.
She should have also realized, though, that the difficulty lay deeper. She should have put the clues together: his acute sensibility, his mistrust of women, his edginess in his family home, his bitterness toward his mother, the portrait of his forbidding father, and Dain’s contradictory behavior toward Jessica herself.
She’d known—hadn’t every instinct told her?—he badly needed her, needed something from her.
He needed what every human being needed: love.
But he needed it far more than many, because, apparently, he hadn’t had so much as a whiff of it since he was a babe.
…he takes it all for granted: her smiles and reassurance, her patience, forgiveness.
Jessica knew she should have laughed, as he had, and kept matters light, no matter what she’d felt. She should not have spoken of mamas and little boys they loved. Then Dain wouldn’t have looked up at her as he had, and she wouldn’t have seen the lonely little boy in him. She would not have grieved for that child, and Dain would not have seen the grief in her eyes.
Now he would think she felt sorry for him—or worse, that she’d deliberately lured him into betraying himself.
He was probably furious with her.
Don’t, she prayed silently. Be angry if you must, but don’t turn your back and walk away.
Dain didn’t leave.
All the same, if Jessica had been a fraction less accustomed to male irrationality, his behavior during the next few days would have destroyed every hope she’d cherished of building anything remotely like a proper marriage. She would have decided he was Beelzebub in truth, and had never been a little boy at all—let alone a heartbroken and lonely one—but had sprung fully grown from the skull of the Prince of Darkness, much as Athena had popped out of Zeus’ head.
But that, she soon understood, was what Dain wanted her to believe: that he was a heartless debauchee whose primary interest in her was lascivious, and who viewed her as an amusing toy, no more.
By Friday, he had debauched her in the window seat of his bedroom, an alcove off the portrait gallery, under the pianoforte in the music room, and against the door of her sitting room—in front of his mother’s portrait, no less. And that was only the daytime depravity.
At least when they were making love he was consistently passionate. Whatever he might be able to pretend when cool and rational, he could not pretend he didn’t want her—badly—or that making her equally lust-crazed wasn’t crucial element of the business.
The rest of the time, however, he was the Dain everyone believed he was. For hours at a stretch he could be amiable, even charming. Then, for no ascertainable reason, he’d turn on her, trickling sarcasm over her like acid, or patronizing her, or casually uttering a handful of words nicely calculated to turn her mind black with rage.
The message, in other words, was that Jessica was permitted to desire him; she was not, however, to insult him with any softer emotions, such as affection or compassion. She was not, in short, to try to get under his skin or—heaven forfend!—weasel her way into his black, rotten heart.
This was not in the least fair, considering that the beast had already crept under her skin and was rapidly fastening like a pernicious parasite upon her heart. He didn’t even have to work at it. She was falling in love with him—in spite of everything and against her better judgment—more slowly, yes, but just as inexorably as she’d fallen in lust with him.
That didn’t mean, however, that she wasn’t strongly tempted to do him a violent injury. When it came to being exasperating, Dain was a genius. By Friday, she was debating the relative merits of putting another bullet through him and trying to decide which portion of his anatomy she could most easily live without.
By Saturday, she’d decided that his brain was probably the most dispensable.
He had awakened in the wee hours, randy, and wakened her to remedy the ailment. Which, it turned out, required two treatments. Consequently, they’d overslept.
As a result of their late start for Devonport, they arrived at the wrestling match minutes after it began, and failed to get a suitable place in the crowd. And everything was Jessica’s fault—because he wouldn’t have become randy, Dain had complained, if she hadn’t been sleeping with her hindquarters squashed against his privates.
“We’re too close,” he complained now, his arm protectively about her shoulders. “In another few rounds, you’ll be spattered with sweat—and very possibly blood, if Sawyer doesn’t stop kicking Keast in the knees.”
Jessica did not remind him that he was the one who’d insisted on elbowing his way to the front.
“That’s how Cann dealt with Polkinhorne,” she said. “I understood kicking was permissible in west country wrestling.”
“I wish that someone in this crowd believed soap and water were permissible,” he muttered, glancing about him. “I’ll wager fifty quid there isn’t a human being within a mile who’s had a bath in the last twelvemonth.”
All Jessica noticed were the usual male odors of spirits, tobacco, and musk—and she had to concentrate hard to notice, because she was pressed against her husband’s side, and his distinctive scent was making her toes curl. It took considerable effort to remain focused on the match, when his warm body was conjuring heated recollections of feverish lovemaking in the small hours of the morning. His big hand dangled but a few inches from her breast. She wondered whether anyone in the crowd pressing about them would notice if she shifted to close the distance.
She hated herself for wishing to close it.
“This match is pathetic,” Dain grumbled. “I could bring Sawyer down with both hands tied and one leg broken. Gad, even you could do it, Jess. I cannot believe Sherbu
rne traveled two hundred miles to witness this abysmal spectacle, when he might have stayed comfortably at home and pumped his wife. One might understand if the girl were bracket-faced or spotty—but she’s well enough, if one has a taste for those China doll creatures. And if she isn’t to his taste, then why in blazes did the fool marry her? It wasn’t as though she had a bun in the oven—nor is she like to have, when he’s never home to do the business.”
The speech was typical of Dain’s mood this day: All the world was in conspiracy to annoy him. Even Sherburne, because he had not…stayed comfortably home with his wife.
Comfortably? Jessica blinked once in astonishment. Good grief, had she actually made progress with her thickheaded husband after all?
Suppressing a smile, she looked up into his cross countenance. “My lord, you do not seem to be enjoying yourself.”
“The stench is intolerable,” he said, glaring past her. “And that sodding swine Ainswood is leering at you. I vow, the man is begging to have his sotted head separated from his shoulders.”
“Ainswood?” She craned her neck, but she could not recognize any faces in the mob.
“You needn’t look back at him,” Dain said. “He is such an idiot, he’ll take it for encouragement. Oh, lovely, now Tolliver’s at it. And Vawtry, too.”
“I’m sure it’s you they’re looking at,” Jessica said mollifyingly, while her spirits soared. The brute was actually jealous. “They probably had wagers going as to whether you’d come, and Ainswood is not leering, but gloating, because he’s won.”
“Then I wish I’d stayed at home. In bed.” Dain frowned down at her. “But no, my wife’s existence will be rendered meaningless if she cannot see a wrestling match, and so—”
“And so you sacrificed your comfort to indulge me. Then, after all the bother, it turns out not to be a proper match at all. You are vexed because you meant this to be a treat for me, and you think it’s spoiled.”
