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Rex inclined his head.
“As you say.”
Blame her? No, not exactly, but he was not happy with her, either. He could not question her loyalty, but neither would he be able to rest until that loyalty was fully, flawlessly tohim.
That was his due as her husband, was it not?
Chapter 20
Rex
False pretenses.
Stiffly escorting his wife back to their carriage, Rex realized that was what was truly bothering him.
All this time, he had assumed Mary was adventurous, looking for illicit thrills when she infiltrated the Society’s masquerade, that she had an interest in him that could not be contained. He had thought she had a real regard for him.
Realizing she had been spying on him, looking for a traitor among his people, and not actually interested inhimat all…
He felt betrayed. Deceived. Misled.
“Rex.” Mary tugged at his arm where she had placed her hand. “Michael…”
“Stop.” He cut her off without looking down at her, unable to bear hearing her call him Michael. The intimacy they had shared the night before now felt false. “We will talk at home.”
At home, after he had some time to reflect on all the new information and what it meant for the marriage she had trapped him in. Had she meant to trap him? Had it all been an elaborate ruse? No, that could not be right. He had been willing to marry her before that—the more fool, him—and she had refused. So why had she gone into the conservatory?
Not to follow a man for an assignation, but perhaps to follow someone she suspected of being connected to this plot. Maybe not even something so dire—she could have been following anyone she recognized from the Society, to see what they were doing and who they were meeting. Most likely, she would have witnessed nothing more than a clandestine tryst, but what if she had stumbled across a traitor? Had she even paused to think about how dangerous that was?
Fear choked him, but he managed to push it back as they reached the carriage, and he wordlessly helped her into it. The groom glanced over his shoulder as if sensing something was amiss between his lord and lady, but of course, he could not ask.
“Home,” Rex barked out before settling beside a subdued Mary.
There was a part of him that wanted to reassure her, but he did not. Another part of him was disgruntled. What did she have to be upset about? She was not the one who had been married under false pretenses.Shehad trapped them both by kissing him in the conservatory, where she had likely been risking her life to follow a possible traitor into a completely unknown situation. She had pretended an interest in him that did not exist.
Aggrieved, Rex sat silently beside her, not allowing the impulse to reach out and hold her hand to sway him from his rightful pique.
Mary
Biting down hard on her lower lip, Mary blinked back the tears in her eyes, forcing her expression into a calm social mask.
That her perfectly wonderful wedding day was followed immediately by such an awful one made her want to hide away in her room and cry into her pillow. Pain had bloomed in the center of her chest, and rubbing did nothing to relieve the steady ache. She wished she had stayed home, the way she originally planned.
Then Rex would have come looking for her, and they could have spent the day together, their first proper day as man and wife, enjoying themselves—instead ofthis.
Or perhaps it was for the best? She could feel the wounded pride radiating off him. Would it be worse if their marriage had gone on longer before he either discovered her mission for Evie, or she had confessed?
Mary wanted to explain to him that she had notwantedto lie. She had notwantedto hide secrets from him. Shedidtrust him. But it had not been her decision or her secret to tell, and she knew that given the choice, she wouldnothave told him today, which only compounded her growing guilt.
Unfortunately, Rex did not want to talk to her. At all.
When they reached home, he helped her down from the carriage and escorted her to the door, but the moment they were inside, he pulled away as if her touch repulsed him.
“I will be in my study.” His eyes skipped over hers, unfocused, as though he did not see her.
Swallowing hard against the pleas of forgiveness bubbling up, Mary nodded her head. She did not trust herself to speak yet. No, impulsiveness had been her downfall at every turn. If he was going to shut himself away in his study, she could do the same elsewhere and use the time to think.
There had to be something she could say, something she could do to make amends and demonstrate her feelings for him. Perhaps it went against Cynthia’s advice to make him chase her, but at the moment, she did not think that advice was pertinent to the situation. She wished she could seek out the other women, or Arabella, or anyone who might have some insight, but she did not dare leave the house again. Who knew what Rex would think if she even made the attempt?
