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Because somehow it had been easier to hate him in the mountains. Here, where she was the one out of place, she found it a far more difficult prospect.
“You are my wife,” he told her with that arrogance of his that should have repelled her. That it didn’t was her secret shame. “That is your role. And do not kid yourself, it is a job. Do you think you can handle it?”
“Is this where you lecture me on what to wear and which fork to use?” she asked him, her voice like acid to her own ears. “You understand, it’s not the comportment classes I object to. It’s the teacher.”
She didn’t know who she had become here, over the course of these strange, confusing days in a city so large she couldn’t make sense of it. And she was so completely within the power of this man, she couldn’t make sense of herself.
Yet, she had the distinct impressionheunderstood her all too well.
A small curve disturbed the stark line of his proud mouth. “I spent a significant amount of my time looking for the perfect wife. My requirements were simple. Poise, grace and aspirational elegance.”
Cecilia hated the fact that sounded like a list of her failings.
“I’m a foundling who wanted to become a nun,” she told him, the cold glass at her back. And far too much defensiveness in her voice. “A fallen woman who cleaned floors to care for her illegitimate child. There’s no poise in that. And very little grace. And if you wanted elegance—well. You were the one who demanded this marriage.”
“And here we are,” Pascal murmured, moving farther into the room. “Just as I demanded.”
The sitting room was one of several such pointless areas in this jaw-droppingly immense place. As far as Cecilia could tell, the point ofso many roomsin a home like this was to stock them all full of unnecessary things—antiques, art, that piano and whatever else shouted its status simply by existing. Because otherwise, what would be the point of having them? When she started thinking of this apartment like a museum, it made more sense.
But did that make her one more piece in his collection?
“We’re well and truly married, Cecilia, in the eyes of God and man,” he told her now. “There’s no pretending otherwise.”
“I wasn’t pretending.”
“Are you ready to take on your duties in that regard?” He was still smiling. She knew it was a warning. “I warn you, it may require that you spend less time idle and more time welded to my side, more or less.”
“That is not appealing,” she said crisply.
Pascal’s smile widened. “You like it well enough in bed.”
And really, she should have seen that coming.
But Cecilia had been going out of her way not to think about the nights here.
Pascal had insisted that she share his bed.
That first night she’d put Dante to bed, claiming he didn’t like to sleep in new places. Only to curl up next to him because actually, she was the one who didn’t want to sleep in this new place. She’d woken up to find herself being carried through this too-large place in her brand-new husband’s arms, and had panicked.
“Calm yourself,” he had told her briskly. “I am only carrying you to the marital bed,cara. I am not requiring you perform in it.”
“I’m perfectly calm,” she’d thrown at him, perhaps desperately. And when they’d reached the palatial suite of rooms that Pascal had said were his, it did not exactly relax her to discover that they were now hers, as well. “Put me down.”
And she almost saidplease,but that would be begging.
Pascal had laughed, but he’d done what she asked. And she had been bleary-eyed and panicky, and still dressed in the clothes he’d set out for her to wear to travel that day. Clothes she had wanted to hate on principle, but couldn’t. Because she had never in her life worn a sweater so soft, so warm. Or trousers that were not only comfortable to sit in for hours on end, but also seemed supernaturally incapable of wrinkling, even all these hours later. Even the shoes he’d provided had somehow managed to be both fashionableandcomfortable.
Cecilia had looked at herself in too many mirrors today, whether in rest stops or in all the gleaming rooms of Pascal’s absurd home, and she hadn’t recognized herself at all. She didn’t look like a simple woman who wanted to become a nun any longer. And she certainly didn’t look like a country woman who cleaned to make her rent.
And the fact that all it took was a change of clothes to make her look like the sort of woman who really might belong in a place like this made her…uneasy.
“I have no intention of begging,” she threw at him, because she couldn’t say she liked the intent look in his eyes just then.
While she’d been curled around her son as if the child was her security blanket—instead of the other way around—Pascal had clearly showered, if his damp hair was anything to go by. And worse, was standing there before her wearing absolutely nothing but a pair of low-slung trousers.
Absolutely nothing.
“Did I ask you to beg?” he asked mildly. “Tonight?”
