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Rees pushed open the door of the sitting room. “Right. We can speak, and then work on that aria.”

Lina strolled before him. “I think not.” She walked over to a couch graced by three towering stacks of paper and plumped herself on top of one of them.

“What are you doing?” Rees bellowed. “Get up at once! You’re sitting on Act One.”

“Mmm, what a pity,” Lina said sweetly. “Don’t worry, Rees. I shall restrain myself from the obvious joke about having had the trots.”

Once again, he had underestimated a female’s anger. Rees ground his teeth for a moment. He should just give Lina a payment and send her on her way. Boot out the mistress, get back into good odor with his saintly brother, bring his wife back into the house, spawn an heir…It felt as if the prison gates were closing about him.

“How much do you want?” he asked abruptly.

Her eyes narrowed but she said nothing.

“You know I’ll give you a large settlement when you leave,” he said impatiently. “But how much extra do you want to stay in the house for a few more weeks, at least until Tom goes home?”

She still said nothing.

He had the uneasy feeling he was missing something, but that was nothing new. He ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t know why other men seemed perfectly capable of understanding women. He found Helene and Lina equally incomprehensible.

“You’re tired of me,” he pointed out.

She nodded at that.

“So the problem is staying in the house with my wife, then?” He turned away and the score waiting on his piano caught his eye. It was hogwash, no question about it. The awful feeling of failure dragging at his ankles just made him feel more stubborn, and more obstinate. If he wasn’t writing comic opera, what was he? Nothing. Nothing more than every other self-satisfied pisser of an earl in this country. At least he made people laugh with his music. But the scores he’d written in the last year wouldn’t do more than send people to sleep.

“What do you want, Lina?”

“Nothing you can give me,” she said.

“I can—”

“This is not about money.”

Rees ran his hand through his hair again. He knew that Lina had left the opera house for love of him. But Christ, that was two, almost three years ago. Surely she had time to get over her infatuation? It only took Helene ten days. “I’m sorry,” he said, turning around and leaning against the piano.

To his relief, she didn’t look broken-hearted. “Why are you taking your wife back?”

“She wants a child. I need an heir.”

“You are thinking about heirs?” Lina hooted.

Rees scowled at her. “I’m not getting any younger,” he said coldly.

“Are you trying to tell me that you’re suffering an old man’s complaint, and that’s why you avoid my bed?”

“No! No,” he said more calmly. “We’re finished, Lina. You know that.”

She shrugged. “So why am I still here?” There was a faint bitterness in her voice that found its way straight to his conscience. “Why haven’t you already set me up with a little house of my own and a snug allowance, to assuage your conscience until I find another protector? Or am I incorrect about the fate of a high-flung courtesan?”

“You’re not a courtesan,” Rees said.

Her eyes blazed scorn. “Only courtesans can be paid to humiliate themselves. I truly am curious, Rees. Why do you want a courtesan in your wife’s bedroom, and a wife in the nursery?”

At the moment he wanted nothing more than for her to be gone. He shrugged. “An impulse. Obviously a stupid one.”

“Afraid of your wife?”

She knew him far too well. “Absolutely not!” he snapped.