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“No!” Now she was really turning red. “Well, no one could truly think that,” she said awkwardly.
Devin glanced at the footman who stood against the wall, and the man scurried out of the room, closing the door behind him.
“Not long ago, you wanted to marry him yourself.”
“Not really,” Viola said, floundering.
“Do you remember that I met you in the library, waiting for Mr. Marlowe? No young lady would secretly meet in a room where she was very likely to be caught, unless she wished to be compromised.” His voice was matter-of-fact.
Viola swallowed hard.
“We married not long after that incident, and under similar circumstances,” Devin said. “I do not expect more than marital affection, Viola, but I would be very displeased to think that you were pining after another man.”
“I’m not pining!”
He leveled a glance at her. “I hope not.”
“My feelings for the vicar were inconsequential,” she added. What she felt for Mr. Marlowe was nothing compared to what she now felt for Devin.
“We both know that,” Devin said flatly. “No one falls in love based on such a brief acquaintance.” His expression suggested that no one loved at all.
“I suppose that’s the problem with Mr. Marlowe and Miss Pettigrew,” Viola said, pushing away the feeling that she was withering inside. Of course he didn’t love her.
“I shall accompany you to the vicarage today,” Devin said.
Viola was surprised. “You will?”
Her husband looked at her calmly across the luncheon table. “Of course.”
“But I thought you were—your theorem?”
“I finished my current letter and sent it off.” He put down his soup spoon. “It may be that I have done everything possible with the number 27.”
Viola couldn’t pretend to know what he was talking about. “So . . . number 28?”
“No.”
When she frowned, he added, “Mathematics doesn’t work like that.”
“I’m so glad that you’re coming to see the progress on the play!” Viola said, abandoning the question of mathematics.
Devin got up deliberately and walked around the table. “We just had our first marital disagreement.”
Viola smiled up at him. She felt slightly bruised, but it wasn’t important. He didn’t mean to imply that she might be adulterous. He was just—
Before she could finish that thought, he drew her to her feet. “We must celebrate.”
Her mouth fell open. “Celebrate?”
He nodded. “We didn’t shout at each other.”
“Of course not!”
His kiss might have begun as a celebration, but before long it turned to a devouring kiss, a possessive, wicked kiss. Sometime after that, Devin turned the latch on the door. And pushed the dishes to the side.
Viola was shaking with desire, her eyes shining, her hands roaming over his shoulders.
He bent over her, hands running up her bare thighs, pushing her voluminous skirts out of the way. “I’m not asking you,” he stated, his eyelids drooping.
