He had already learned one thing since his return: Alaina had taken the last eight years to become gloriously uncensored. If she ever attempted to hide her moods, then she did a hideous job of it. He also learned that he could tell how the rest of the day would go within those first ten seconds of seeing her each morning.
Some days he’d catch her smiling to herself, humming a jaunty tune as she bounced down the last few steps. Sterling enjoyed those days and took extreme pleasure in the softness of her graceful features…even if her smile would disappear the very moment she saw him. The wall she hid behind would be erected once more; however, at least she’d mumble a curt reply to his “good morning” on those days.
There were times he could tell she hadn’t slept well; pale bruises dared to mar the delicate skin beneath her eyes. He wondered if his presence in her life once more had concerned her greatly enough to cause sleeplessness and a pang of guilt prodded at the edge of his conscience. Regardless of what Alaina believed, he took no pleasure in her discomfort.
Other days, she’d stomp down the stairs and, without preamble, berate him for moving something in the library the prior evening or for making the mistake of requesting one ofhis servantsperform some task. Those mornings—even if she didn’t bite his head off like a bloodthirsty mantis—he swore the temperature in the room plummeted well below freezing.
To call her moods toward him mercurial would be unfair to her because, for the most part, once she picked one, she stuck to a mood for at least that day. She hated him on bad days and tolerated him on good ones. She glared at him as if trying to decide which poison would best do him in, or she was an ice queen who kept herself at a safe distance from his sullying presence. He might have been more concerned that she’d actually attempt to do him harm were she a woman with less forethought and reason, but she’d always been intelligent, his wife. She’d realize it did not behoove her to do away with him, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t try to make his existence uncomfortable.
Despite his resolve, the impression that he seemed to be the only one on the receiving end of Alaina’s frigidity and scorn began to erode him like acid from the inside out.
Sterling had witnessed firsthand several times how the flip in her personality occurred when she interacted with someone else after being in his presence. As cool as she’d acted toward him, the newcomer would be greeted with the sweetest of smiles on those full lips of hers and the most pleasant tone in her voice.
It grated upon his every frayed nerve.
What in God’s name did he have to do to earn even an ounce of that sweetness?
He’d buy her half of London if he thought it would make a difference, but his wife had made it abundantly clear that she wanted nothing to do with him…and, for the most part, he obliged…no matter how little he liked it. They kept to their separate endeavors and areas of the massive home, encountering one another with relative infrequency.
It was hardly the marriage Sterling had imagined when he’d requested Alaina’s hand nearly a decade prior.
Nothing about this life was what he’d once imagined for them.
Lately, the only extended amount of time she spent in his presence was at supper. Together, they would eat in near complete silence, despite Sterling’s determined inquiries. Most often, regardless of his inquest’s nature, his efforts were met with cool civility. She could be downright frosty. They’d continue on until Sterling’s efforts died a slow death, strangled by Alaina’s unwillingness to cooperate.
Their lack of pleasant conversation, however, was not the only thing bothering him.
Despite the persistent ache in his loins plaguing him since well before he’d set foot upon English soil, Sterling hadn’t returned to Alaina’s chambers since that first night…a fact that she seemed more than pleased to accept.
This, perhaps, irked him most of all.
It wasn’t as if he was conceited (above and beyond the expected self-assurance a man possessed when he was born into more than passable attractiveness on top of a dukedom), but he would be lying if he claimed he was used to a woman’s rebuff. Females, young and old, had always been drawn to him. Whether his looks or his wealth or his title or his charm were the draw, he’d never lacked companionship.
He was pursued by women he didn’t want, didn’t desire, didn’t set his blood aflame, yet the only woman he longed for couldn’t stand to be in the same room as he. He’d have gladly given all those hollow, unwanted attentions and advances away a thousand times over if Alaina would only look at him like she used to. It would certainly be a cruel twist of fate that he’d be married to the one woman who wasn’t attracted to him.
The real shame was that he wantedher, even with her decidedly frigid treatment of him.
And he was damned if he knew why.
Perhaps some twisted part of him was drawn to the challenge.
Or the torture.
Alaina was a beautiful woman; she always had been. But maturity had granted her grace, and experience had lent her tongue a biting wit for which—though its daggers were frequently aimed at him—he couldn’t help but afford her begrudging admiration.
That, or he was simply losing all his mental faculties and required institutionalization.
A very small, very quiet part of him refused to be cowed.She remembered how he took his tea.He had to believe some minute part of her still cared, whether it wanted to or not. It had been years since she’d prepared him a cup of tea, but she’d performed the task with flawless efficiency, and she’d done it to perfection. Despite her reticence to accept him back into her life, the seemingly innocuous act gave him a ray of hope warm and bright enough to bolster his resolve. He’d been so taken aback by the gesture that he hadn’t been able to react at first. He recognized it was a silly thing—tea was tea—but it had told him in no uncertain terms that she hadn’t forgotten him…not completely.
On one of the “bad days,” Sterling found Alaina reclining on a chaise longue in a warm patch of sun in the library. With bated breath, he watched her in the unguarded seconds before she noticed his arrival.
She caught the manicured nail of her thumb between her pearly teeth as she buried her nose in a cloth-covered manuscript. The golden light lent her a shimmering halo and kissed the gentle curve of her cheek in such a way that it made him ache. A heat more palpable than the very sunlight streaming into the room blossomed from deep in his chest, sinking lower and lower until he was half-hard so quickly it was painful.
He wanted to pluck the papers from her hands and toss them aside. To press her back until she was prone and pliant beneath him. To bathe in her scent. To fit his thigh between hers as he melded the curves and hollows of their bodies and tasted every inch of her silken flesh, every curve, every crevice. To finally, irrevocably claim her as his.
Though he was loath to break the spell, Sterling cleared his throat and Alaina stiffened. A new pain prodded his innards, dousing his ardor with a healthy dose of reality. He was about as close to his wife allowing him any liberties as a fish was to sprouting wings and flying.
Alaina did not look up from her reading, but he could tell from the tilt of her head that she was listening. “I’m off to my solicitor’s office,” he announced. She raised her hand in haughty dismissal and hunkered down more deeply into the chaise. He suppressed a sigh as he backed out of the room and retrieved his hat from Maxwell.
