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It meant trouble.
He did not give a damn. She had come home.
A faint smile sketched on her disastrously tempting lips. “Thank you.” She carried herself out and closed the door delicately. Too delicately for the Aileen he knew.
~.~.~
Aileen strutted to the chambers uncertain whether irritation or disappointment ran in her. She left the McKendricks eager to return to her home—yes this was home for her at present—to him. She missed him, blast it!
Dawn had not broken when she left, intent on being back for dinner. And for what?
To find the man sitting almost, almost placidly—placid being a word she would not use in relation to him, ever—at his desk and have him look at her as if he did not even notice her absence. His words cold, but his features, his eyes burning with something she could not catch. Not only that. His skin a tad… wan, without the healthy glow his outdoor life afforded him. As though he had been…
Drinking!
Irritation won the day. Why would the implacable giant be in his cups? She had not seen him taking drink in excess up to today. Moderation his measure as far as she realised. It begged the question and she should ask it.
Disappointment did not lay far behind though. She wanted to run to him, hold him, smell his manly tang and kiss him until they came up breathless and ready for one another. A wall of controlled civility met her at the study. Civility being the second word surrealistically linked to the man.
What was going on, for pity’s sake?
Less than a week away should not have changed the scenario so drastically.
Her husband proved to be a vault of secrets. Strange behaviour manifested in him since the gathering at the church grounds. It necessitated attention.
As she entered their chamber, a warm bath awaited thankfully. She washed away the weariness and the doubts and dressed for dinner.
~.~.~
After dinner, they sat in the drawing room, she with her needlework and he with legal papers. The meal had elapsed in an apparently normal way with so many currents running underneath she did not figure out how the servants made it between the kitchen and the dining room.
Her blabber about what transpired in the McKendrick’s the sole talk in between the clinking sounds of the dinner ware.
Frustration bleared in her. Her spine sang with the tension which vibrated in the air. Jerky fingers held the needle, and she had already jabbed her hands too many times to count.
Surprisingly, he followed her here with those documents and sat absorbed in them. Her husband was usually a very energetic man. This sedate version of him totally unfamiliar to her.
The footmen were finishing serving tea.
Her insides wrenched with this unexpected behaviour. “I would like to know why you have been drinking.” She shot close-range.
His green eyes snapped to hers, vexed. “Leave.” At the dry order, the footmen hurried out of the room.
Long muscled legs stretched on the carpet, pulling his tartan up, his elbow resting on the armchair’s arm, a study in casualness. “What makes you think I have been drinking?”
If she talked about his appearance, he would deny it. So, she played the other card. “Your study reeked funny this afternoon.” It was not like she wanted to control his every move. This episode made up for an exception in his attitude though.
He crossed his taut arms. “I drank a few glasses of whisky yesterday, yes.”
She respected it he did not lie, even if it did not favour him. His big frame draped on that armchair did little to dispel her… keenness. “I hope nothing bad prompted you to it.”
At the remark, he uncoiled from the chair so quickly, one imagined how his large body did it. “What is this, an interrogation?” Irritably, he strode to the escritoire on the corner and plopped the pape
rs there.
Her hands let go of her needle, alarm accumulating in her. “No, not that.” Fingers groped for the sewing again. “I just want to learn if something is wrong.”
Those long fingers raked his sable hair. “No, it is not.” He paced to the hearth. “Does this satisfy you?”
