She didn’t know what to believe and now she was beginning to doubt she could believe anything she heard or even saw.
Determined to ensure she wasn’t losing her mind, Verity accepted an evening tray from a maid. She delivered it herself to her husband’s study.
It was a beautiful and masculine room filled with dark leather books, a grand fireplace, and a magnificent desk filled with papers. She set the tray down on a side table without the duke ever looking up to notice it wasn’t the maid.
“You may go,” he said when she didn’t move.
Verity attempted a smile. “No hello?”
Dominic jerked his head up. Those charming glasses of his nearly slid off his nose. He tore them off and stared at her with a frown. “How long have you been here?”
“Only a moment.” She gestured toward the tray.
“Where have the maids gone?”
“Wherever they should be, I would suppose,” she answered.
That didn’t help his perplexity. She didn’t mind one way or the other. “What is that to mean? Why are you delivering my tray, then?”
“Because I haven’t seen you in days,” she pointed out in a huff. “I wanted to make sure you hadn’t gone up in a puff of smoke. That you were still breathing. It’s not like I ever see you otherwise.”
He leaned back in his seat. “I’m simply busy. It’s the Season for you, but it’s Parliament for me. There’s business to attend to with my estates as well.”
“You have solicitors and the like to help you there,” she pointed out. “I only wish…”
Dominic straightened. “What?”
She swallowed and shook her head, reminding herself of tonight’s purpose. It wouldn’t do not to have answers. She needed to hear this from him. “I only wish you would talk to me.”
“We are talking.”
“Not like we have before. Something changed. You’re even treating me stranger,” she added, leaning forward to see him push his chair further away. “See? What is it?”
All her husband did was frown. “Verity…”
“I want to know. I deserve to know,” she insisted. “You can’t be kind to me and then ignore me. You cannot pretend I don’t exist. While I can accept that our marriage may be different, you… you don’t treat me like anything! So what happened? What changed?”
He huffed. “Nothing did.”
“I won’t accept that for an answer. I’m not leaving until I get a better one,” she added boldly.
“Fine. I’ll leave.”
He rose, moving around the desk. But Verity could walk quickly as well. They both had long legs and she had the advantage. She reached the door before him, the one she had already closed, and stood before it. Even as Dominic reached for the handle, his hand touched her waist. An electric sensation swept through her.
And then he moved back. “Blast it, Verity.”
“What changed?” She dared him with her eyes to answer. Chest heaving, she stared up at her husband wondering where the limit was for them. How far could they go? How close could they be? There was so much distance between them that she didn’t understand.
“I didn’t… I don’t even know of what you speak. We’ve not been married more than a month,” he reminded her.
“But you could touch me before. You smiled with me before,” she found herself rambling. “We even laughed. Don’t you remember? Those dances… We had something, the two of us. And now we are strangers once again.”
He shook his head. “We have always been strangers.”
“Then you do not know me?”
“I…” Dominic couldn’t answer that.
