Page 106 of The Work of Art

He’d promised himself he would tell her everything about the threat from Moreland—and tell her he had, but Arthur was beginning to suspect that he’d made a profound error in judgment. “Say something,” he urged. “Please.”

Philly was staring down at her plate, but when Arthur spoke, she lifted her gaze back to his. Her face was pale. “Why did you keep all of this from me?”

“I wouldn’t have had you frightened, Philly. Not over something that originally seemed so utterly ridiculous.”

“But you don’t think it ridiculous now.”

“Not after you fell from Persephone, no. The arrival of the note made me uneasy, I won’t pretend it didn’t, but it seemed…off, somehow. It struck me as the overly dramatic sort of thing a child would do. But the snare on the avenue of the elms was something entirely different. Whoever was responsible for it meant to do you actual harm. That’s why I restricted your rides to the paddock. Why I didn’t want you out alone outside of the house anymore. And when you wandered off after Hyperion—”

“You thought the Duke of Moreland had taken me.”

“Yes. Not the duke himself, but someone in his employ. Some villain. I don’t know.” Arthur raked his fingers through his hair. “I wasn’t thinking clearly at that particular moment.”

“You thought he’d taken me so that he could…what? Kill me? Like he killed Molly Cartwright? Or that he meant to destroy me like some work of art he’s been unable to procure for himself?” Philly shook her head. “Arthur, you can’t believe the duke is truly so dangerous. Not really. For if you did—if you thought for even one moment that he might do me harm—you’d never have considered leaving London.”

Arthur stilled. “What?”

“After my uncle’s dinner party. You knew the duke had an interest in me, and yet you would have returned to Somersetshire that Friday. You would have left me to him.” She leaned forward. “Don’t you see? If he’d really been dangerous, you’d never have gone. Or if you had, at the very least, you’d have warned me of the danger. We were friends then. More than friends, though we hadn’t yet acknowledged it. You wouldn’t have simply abandoned me to a monster.”

Arthur stared at her, momentarily speechless. By God, she was right. If he’d believed the rumors about Moreland…

But he hadn’t believed them. Not then.

“You must understand,” he said at last. “When we were in London, all those stories about the duke…I didn’t credit them. I’ve been hearing such things about Moreland my entire life. I never once thought any of it more than fantastical tales. Fictions. It’s true, I didn’t like him. And I didn’t want you to marry him. But for all that, he is a duke. If you’d wanted to become his duchess, there was no legitimate objection I could have given then except that I loved you myself.”

“Are you saying that you no longer think the stories about Moreland are fictions? That, after the note and Persy’s fall, you’ve changed your mind?”

“Yes.” Arthur thought of the morning of their marriage, their hurried trip from London to Somersetshire, and the fears that had plagued him along the way. “No,” he amended, surprising himself. “It wasn’t the note, nor even your fall that changed my mind. The truth is… I began to take the rumors about Moreland seriously as soon as we married.”

Philly raised her brows. “Before any threats had been made?”

Arthur struggled to explain what he didn’t quite understand himself. “Once we married, once you became mine, I was consumed with the urge to protect you. Perhaps it’s like that for all husbands? I don’t know. But by the time we were in the coach and on our way here to Somersetshire, I found I could no longer dismiss the potential threat from Moreland. When the note came, it was the confirmation of all my fears.”

“‘You have taken what is mine,’” Philly recited with a thoughtful frown. “Can the duke really feel that I belong to him? Even though I refused his offer, and am now married to you?”

“It’s possible, I suppose.”

“But he didn’t even seem to like me. Indeed, the day he took me driving in the park, he scolded me and accused me of being as stupid as his dogs.”

Philly’s own dogs had long since given up begging at the table and were now lying asleep by the hearth. At her words, Basil raised his head enquiringly.

“And then…” She frowned. “He told me that no one had ever seen my equal and compared me to a Botticelli or a Titian. Yet, he didn’t seem to be complimenting me as a woman. He spoke of me as a…as a thing.”

“The Work of Art,” Arthur mused. “Something for his collection.”

“Oh, how foolish!” Philly’s cheeks flushed with rare anger. Her eyes dropped once more to her plate.

Arthur followed her gaze. Her buttered bread was uneaten, and the rest of the dishes on the table had no doubt gone cold. He felt a stab of guilt for confessing to her over breakfast. She wasn’t only recovering from an injury, she was expecting their child. She shouldn’t be missing her meals.

In one quick motion, he rose from the table and jerked the bell pull. “The cook can send you something hot,” he said as he sank back down in his chair. “You must eat.”

“Yes.”

He waited for her to say something more. When she didn’t speak, he found himself unable to endure the silence. “I should have told you.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “You should have done. If I’d known, perhaps I might have been frightened, but at least I would have understood why you watched over me so closely. As it was, I thought you simply a very possessive husband.”

Arthur had the grace to redden. “I am a very possessive husband.”