Page 26 of Never Tempt a Widow

Chapter Fourteen

When Rowland returned, Fina was not asleep. She listened, fighting the trembling of her body, as Felix bade him good night and closed his chamber door.

Without knocking, her husband strode into her bedchamber and halted at the foot of the bed. Wrapping her arms around herself, she gazed at him, standing there in all his magnificence, silently hating her. A slow tear slid down her cheek.

“I suppose I should be honoured to have such an august bride. Quite a catch for a lowly baronet.” There was no bitterness in his tone. There was no emotion at all—which made her feel even worse.

“I’m sorry.”

“Not as sorry as I am. What will happen to my plans to acquire land and better myself when society discovers I’m a dupe? I’ll be a laughingstock.”

She raked her gaze over him, from the golden hair and broad shoulders to the deep chest, flat stomach, and down to the strongly-muscled calves. He was a paragon of male perfection. No one could ever laugh at this stunning spectacle. He was utterly desirable—and she’d lost him.

“No one will mock you. No one could ever mock you. It is I who will draw their stares and their disapproval.”

“Am I to be pitied by society because of my wife, then? I don’t know which is worse.” He dragged off his coat and threw it onto a chair, then grappled with his cravat. She heard it rip as he wrenched it off, and winced. All that expensive lace. He must be truly furious.

“You can send me away. I’ll never trouble you again.”

His expression was dark. “We had an agreement, Wife. You agreed to be a mother to Edgar, and I agreed to keep a roof over your head. There will now need to be some modifications to our arrangement.”

Fear seized her heart in its chilly grip. “What kind of modifications?”

“First, you will be reconciled with your family so that you may be respectable again.”

“Are you insane?” They’d never take her back. Her sisters would hate her for ruining their reputation, Papa would want to wipe her from his memory, and Mama—well, Mama would insult her by every possible means until she had not a speck of self-worth left.

He came and loomed over the bed. “You are in no position to veto. Or even to negotiate.”

Sitting down, he unbuckled his shoes and kicked them beneath the bed, then peeled off his stockings.

She was momentarily distracted from her horror at his pronouncement. “What are you doing?”

“Getting ready for bed. I told you earlier that we would be sleeping together again.”

He wanted to sleep with her? After Felix’s coup de grace, she’d expected to be thrown into the cellar and fed on bread and water while wearing sackcloth and ashes.

“I couldn’t be bothered to get the fire made up in my room while I undressed, so I came in here. The bed will be warm because you are in it.”

She hid her face in her hands. So, this was how he meant to torture her. By lying a hands-breath away, his back to her, wordlessly taunting her. And silently tempting her.

No. That wasn’t what she wanted. It was better this way—that she be anathema to him. She mustn’t give in to her desires again. Look where that had taken her before.

“Fina, you’re strong—we both are. We’ll come through this.” His voice was soft. Her shoulders shook. He was too good a man for her to have brought ruin on him.

“I don’t want you to weep.” She felt his hand on her arm.

“I deserve to weep.” She sniffled. “I could have told you. I should have told you. I was just so miserable after Adelina died—I wanted something stable in my life.”

“I know. And yes, you should have told me. It wounded me more deeply than you can imagine to have Felix thrust those words in my face like that. I have mollified him, by the way. It took a good dinner and several glasses of the Hanleys’ excellent brandy, but in the end, he realised you were not quite the monster he thought you. Besides, I gave him a good reason to mind his words.”

She slid her hands slowly down and met his eyes. “What reason did you give?”

“I told him that I had fallen in love with you.”

The explosion of emotion in her belly was unexpected. An eruption of joy, short-lived but powerful. Of course, he didn’t love her. Most certainly, she didn’t want him to. But it meant there was hope, hope that he intended to resume this marriage in name only, despite her deception.

She cleared her throat. And cleared it again. “So, now we must make every effort to appear loving. Or Felix will be more infuriated than he is already.”