She turned at the sound of the door creaking open and her pulse quickened when she saw her husband standing in the doorway. Dressed in an emerald-green tailcoat tailored perfectly to his broad shoulders, crisp white cravat stuck through with a gold pin, and black breeches tucked into leather riding boots lightly speckled with dirt, indicating he’d just gotten in from a morning ride, he appeared every inch earl of the manor.
Handsome.
Powerful.
Domineering.
She, by comparison, could not have lookedlesslike a countess in a plain, slightly wrinkled gray dress, spectacles that were bent from falling asleep with her face pressed againstthe carriage window, and untamed curls barely clinging to the remnants of a coiffure.
They were so different in presentation it was almost laughably absurd. Couldn’t Stephen see that it wouldn’t work? Was he willfully blind to the irrationality of their marriage? Or simply tethered to the anchor that their fathers had bound them to before they were born, regardless of how far it sank?
“Good morning,” she said tentatively, her voice louder than it should have been amidst the library’s multitude of tomes. Her knuckles gleamed white as she brought the teacup to her chin as if it were comprised of impenetrable steel instead of breakable porcelain.
“Abigail.” He prowled into the room, his steps fluid and silent, the only sound coming from the sharpclickof the door as he closed it behind him. “How was your tour of the house?”
“Very informative, th-thank you.” She pivoted to watch him when he went to the fireplace, her eyes as wide and wary as a small animal observing a fox from the tangled branches of a thicket. Embers flew into the air and the logs crackled when he jostled them with a poker before finally turning toward her, his expression impenetrable as he leaned against the back of a leather sofa and crossed his arms.
“Do you have any questions?”
Only a thousand.
If this were a surgery, she would know the next step to take. Assess the damage, stop the bleeding, flush the wound, repair what could be fixed, and stitch the skin closed. But in this broken farce of a marriage—broken, she was willing to admit, in large part due to her own actions—was there anythingleftto fix?
“In regard to the house,” he clarified before she could respond, his gaze dropping briefly before returning to her face where it hardened, a muscle pulsing in his granite jaw. “I’m sure you have plenty of questions about why I’ve brought you here,which I do intend to answer. But not with you standing across the bloody room looking at me as if I’m about to pick that poker back up and hit you over the head with it.”
Her mouth dropped open. “I’m not... I’m not looking at you like that.”
He snorted; the first sliver of humor to cross his countenance since arriving on her doorstep in London. It softened the somber lines bracketing his mouth, and for a fleeting instant, Abigail wasn’t in the library but a narrow alley beside a coffee shop standing in the snow.
“Half past nine?”
“Half past nine. Look for a black carriage.”
“They’re all black.”
“Then look for me. I’ll be the chap bounding up the pavement to collect his beautiful bride.”
“Physical attractiveness is a relative means of—”
“Beautiful. You are beautiful, Abigail.”
Biting the inside of her cheek, she shuffled closer, her heels dragging on the lush carpet. Arching a brow, Stephen gestured for her to sit on the sofa behind him with a broad sweep of his arm and after a moment’s hesitation she obliged, returning her teacup to its saucer before sinking into one of the generously upholstered cushions. He sat on the opposite end and for a few minutes they both stared into the fire, watching the rhythmic lick of the flames.
“I would like—” she began.
“There are a few—” he started.
Three years of not speaking, and now they were interrupting each other.
It would have been amusing if it weren’t so painfully stiff.
“You first,” he said, granting her the floor.
Abigail took a measured breath as she struggled to put her thoughts in order. She wanted to do this once, and she wantedto do it correctly. Dropping her gaze to her lap where her fingers were interlocked, she started again. “I would like to apologize again. After you came to see me in Connecticut, I... I panicked. As a result of that panic, I believed my best course of action was to disappear. In hindsight, I realize that I should have given you the courtesy of a letter. That would have been the far more logical decision.”
“A letter,” Stephen repeated.
“Yes,” she said earnestly. “A letter explaining that I did not want to be found and I wished no ill will between us. I truly did not anticipate how long you would continue to search for me, and I am sorry to have wasted your time.”
