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“I say, my dear,” said Julian in that same voice that he always used, that Timoney liked to tell herself wascourtly. When she thought the real word to describe it wascondescending. “I rather thought you’d retired for the evening.”
“I like to read each evening before I sleep.” She glanced down at the book in her lap and saw that she’d picked out one of her favorite books, a thick volume of children’s adventure stories that actually featured girls, not boys.
She wanted to club him with it.
Which was in itself a surprise, as it was the most she’d felt in Julian’s presence since they’d met.
Julian studied her for a moment, then smiled in a manner that looked diffident and apologetic. That was, unless she looked at his cold gaze, which was neither.
“I am a man of many needs, my dear,” he said then, in the same tone. “A conversation I expected to have after our wedding, not before. But you are a practical girl, are you not? You must be, I think, to marry so quickly after such a scandalous union as the one you had with Asgar. As you know, I have already indicated that I will care for any...unfortunate consequences of that union.” He nodded at her belly, as if she might have missed his meaning. “I ask very little in return.”
“Thatvery littlebeing a blind eye, presumably,” she said. “To diplomat’s wives and whoever else catches your fancy. Is that it?”
He inclined his head. “I’m of an old school. I will require all the usual marital rights, but in a situation such as ours, where there are no complications involving tender feelings, it can truly harm no one if I slake some of my darker hungers in other places. You may learn to thank me for this, in time.” That smile of his deepened, though his gaze seemed harder. “You seem at a loss for words, Timoney.”
“It’s all so indelicate,” she said quietly, like the girl she’d been pretending to be for months. Encased in ice and irritated when anything disturbed her bleakness. But now everything was different. Now she had melted. Still, she tried. “Surely such things are not spoken of. Not like this.”
“Now, now,” Julian said, with a chuckle that was not in the least bit friendly. “Fewer lessons in decorum from a girl who until recently was nothing but a whore for a mongrel, please.”
Her blood pounded so hard in her ears that Timoney was shocked she didn’t topple over. It took every bit of willpower she had to keep from whipping her head around to see if Crete was reacting to thatmongrelcomment from his place behind the table.
She wanted to scream.
She wanted to fly at Julian and slap him straight across his red, jowly face.
It was as if she’d emerged from some kind of frigid swamp. She’d thought of it as being frozen solid, but what she felt now was far worse than a simple melting. It threatened to suck her in, this realization of what she’d done. What she’d agreed to when she’d felt nothing.
Had Julian said such things before? Had he expressed his opinion about not only Crete but also Timoney’s behavior like this?
She couldn’t remember it, because she hadn’t cared either way. And yet she knew, suddenly and without doubt, that he had.
And more, that she’d simply sat there like a block of icy wood, too lost in her own misery to care what was said to her or around her.
God help her, but this brutal awakening was not a kindness.
“I see the cat has got your tongue,” Julian said with another chuckle. “This pleases me, Timoney. I don’t mind telling you, I’m not marrying you for your conversation.”
His gaze raked over her then, making her feel stripped naked. And not in a pleasant way. Not the way she felt when Crete looked at her, too much heat in his gaze.
It felt rather more like a threat.
She actually bit her own tongue to keep from speaking any of the words that clambered there, desperate to fall out of her mouth.
Or more likely catapult out and insult this man, who she was only just realizing she didn’t know at all.
Not because he hadn’t showed himself to her. But because she hadn’t been paying attention.
“Enjoy your reading,” he told her. “I shall see you in the morning.”
Another threat.
Timoney stayed where she was until she heard the faintest sound from behind her, only a breath after the door closed behind Julian.
She turned, almost afraid, so wildly did her heart pound.
For Crete rose from the place where he had concealed himself, a dark movement. And his gaze upon her was like thunder.
She expected him to seethe at her. Possibly even shout. She expected him to storm across the room and grab her, hauling her up against him to argue his case.
