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“What way do you mean?” she asked carefully. Too carefully.
Nonetheless, he could do naught but answer truthfully. “With d’Arque as your lover.”
For a second her eyes flashed with wild hurt before she could shield the emotion, and he realized he’d just dug himself into a hole.
“You think I’m a whore,” she said.
A very deep hole.
“No, of—”
But she whirled away, caught in the steps of the dance. This time he watched her anxiously, this wife he knew so little about. Had Clara ever thought she’d been so grievously insulted, she would’ve wept. Or perhaps stomped off. He truly didn’t know because he never would’ve gotten into a discussion like this in the first place with Clara. The very idea was ludicrous.
Margaret in contrast held her head high, her cheeks flagged with a becoming rose color. She looked like a goddess enraged. A goddess who might, if they were alone, assault his person—the thought of which unaccountably aroused him.
When the dance brought them together again, they both opened their mouths at once.
“I never meant—” he began.
“You convict me without trial,” she hissed over him, “and on pathetically thin evidence.”
“You were flirting, madam.”
“And if I was?” she asked, her eyes widening dramatically. “If every woman who flirted in a ballroom were deemed a slut, then all but nuns and babes would be thus branded. Do you truly think I meant to start an affair with the viscount?”
He hesitated a fraction of a breath too long.
Her beautiful brows snapped together. “You are the most maddening man.”
They were drawing stares, but he couldn’t let this bit of outrageousness pass.
“I? I am maddening? I assure you, my lady, that you are the maddening one. I’ve never caused a scene in a public venue before in my—”
“And now you’re on your second,” she flung back.
A childish retort, but also deeply annoying, as she managed to get it off just before they were forced to separate.
Which, naturally, gave her the last word.
He didn’t even bother hiding his scowl as he followed her movements broodingly. A slightly plump matron took one look at his face and tripped over herself, bumping into the next couple.
His scowl deepened.
“Have I ever given you cause to doubt my fidelity?” she asked as soon as they came together once more.
“No, but—”
“And yet you accuse me of the worst thing a man can accuse a woman of.”
“Margaret,” he said helplessly, all his eloquence evaporated.
She inhaled and spoke quietly as he paced around her. “Why do you even care? You’ve made plain your disinterest. Why play the dog in the manger? Why did you marry me in the first place?”
His eyes slid away from her face, noting all those trying to hear their conversation without seeming to do so. “Your brother asked me—”
“Griffin hardly knew you.”
He glanced back at her and saw the determined expression on her face. “This is not the place—”
