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The top three buttons were undone, revealing a bit more of his tattoo than usual, and his shirttails were out and wrinkled. His feet were bare, and the ends of his bowtie were loose on either side of his collar, where a bit of his tattoo said hello. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and his hair was a bit mussed. Regardless, he still looked as edible as ever. Maybe more than when he was polished and put together.
Xavier shook his head. “I didn’t sleep,” he admitted. “The ball lasted until nearly four in the morning, and Frederick and I stayed later trying to get the Earl of Ketchley to invest in a wind farm. I heard you found your way here at a reasonable time, though, even if you were quite…animated…with the staff.”
I cringed, remembering some of my comments to the butler. And to Elsie, for that matter. Not my finest hour. I had been the very definition of an Ugly American.
“I’ll tell Jeeves—I mean, Benson?—I’m sorry,” I said. “God, I really was awful.”
“Bledsoe,” Xavier corrected me gently. “And don’t worry about it. I’ve called him worse. We pay him very well to put up with us.” He shrugged, turning to look out the window. “When I got home, I just sat in the other room until I thought you’d have slept enough. Smaller house. Nosier staff. Thought it best to avoid gossip.”
I laid back on the pillows, rotating the bouquet in my hands. “Since when did you start caring about gossip?”
He glanced at a pile of papers, obviously thinking about the headlines. They were the ones I picked out. “Since when did you?”
“Since they started printing lies about our daughter.” And me, though I couldn’t quite bring myself to say so.
Xavier shrugged. “I told you, they’ve been doing that about me since I was a child, too. But I don’t like them printing rubbish about you and Sof either. Or maybe it’s just that I see how much it affects you, and I don’t like that.”
I frowned. “Then why don’t you do anything about it?”
His brow furrowed with confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I tell you about it, and you don’t seem bothered. You say you’ve experienced it all before and to pay it no mind, like it doesn’t affect me that people all over this country believe I’m a liar and a thief and a terrible mother.”
Xavier scowled at the papers. “What do you want me to do, Ces? Chase down the reporters who print it and threaten them with their lives?”
“I want you to care as much about your family as you do about a chef messing up your soup or threatening some guy who likes me!” I tossed the flowers onto the bedspread and sat up fully. I was the one who had been a mess last night, but now he looked awful contrite. “Why do you do that?” I pressed. “Lose your temper that way? Especially at the ones like the chef who are just doing their jobs? It’s like there’s an on-off switch with you. You either don’t care at all, or you treat people like scum.”
Xavier looked up, blue eyes nearly the color of the sky outside my window. “Why did you last night? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you be rude to anyone, but poor Bledsoe took the brunt, didn’t he?”
I swallowed sheepishly. “I said I was sorry. I was drunk, for one.”
“Come on, Ces. It was more than that.”
I considered. “Fine. I was mad. Really mad. At you, mostly. But also at…I don’t know. All the people who treat me like I’m nothing. The newspapers. The hostess last night. Imogene and your stepmother. All those people who have watched me down their patrician noses, waiting for me to mess up for the last several weeks, maybe the whole time I’ve been here. Bledsoe was just the really snobby cherry on that particular sundae.”
Xavier nodded. “Well, then you’ve some idea of how I’ve felt my entire life.” He blinked. “Really, really mad.”
“Not right now,” I pointed out. “Now you’re sitting there like once again, none of it matters.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” He shook his head, then shoved a hand through silky, bedraggled hair. “I’m always angry, Ces. Most days, I spend my time trying to shove it down. And the only way to do that is to numb myself. Act like I don’t care.”
“Even with me?” I wondered. “Even with us?”
“No.” Xavier looked up, expression softened. “That’s how I knew, you know,” he said quietly. “With you, with Sof, the world is just…quieter somehow. With you, I feel so much more than anger. With the two of you, I only felt peace.”
“Until now,” I finished for him. “When that world is shoving its way in.”
He examined me for a long moment, then got up and moved to sit next to me on the bed. “Only if we let it, babe.”
I allowed him to gather me into his broad chest and stroke my hair like a child. It felt good. But like everything else he’d been offering of late, it felt like a tease.
And it wasn’t enough.
Tell him, I thought to myself. Tell him what you want. Tell him not to dance with Imogene. Tell him you need him to stand up for you. Tell him that you can be there for him, support him, love him no matter what. But tell him that you need all of that, too.
I wanted to say so. I really did.
Instead, I changed the subject.
