But her heart was still somersaulting in a disconcerting way. In near desperation, she reached for her social armor and narrowed her eyes on Child’s face. “I will grant that, in many respects, you might know Devlin better than I do, but regarding his feelings toward me, you’ve misread him.”
She made the statement with steady resolution. She tipped her chin a touch higher. “The basis of our marriage has always been entirely clear between us. He didn’t marry me because he loved me.” Before she could censor her tongue, she rolled on, “We married because I loved him.”
Child’s lips tightened, and adamantly, he shook his head. “I will allow that might have been so when the pair of you married. I don’t know—I wasn’t here then. But whatever was or wasn’t between you when Devlin put his ring on your finger”—he dipped his head so that his eyes bored directly into hers—“trust me when I say that he’s head over heels in love with you now.”
Therese studied Child’s eyes, his expression, and didn’t know what to say or do. She didn’t even know what she felt. If Child was correct, then her most precious dream had come true, but…
She frowned and let her gaze slide from Child’s face, then murmured more to herself than him, “He’s never said…”
Or had he?
The two recent incidents of inexplicable, uninterpretable comments from her previously faultlessly articulate husband sprang to her mind.
But he’d explained both…
No, he hadn’t.
In neither case had he clarified his meaning, but uncharacteristically, in both instances, he’d waited to see how she interpreted his words, then allowed her assumption to stand.
Why? Had he been waiting to see if she would realize…what?
Therese stared blankly at Child’s shoulder as she scrambled to reassemble the exact words and, even more, the context of Devlin’s strange remarks.
Although Child stood directly before her, she’d forgotten him entirely—until he lightly shook her.
She refocused on his face and saw his frustration. “You infuriating female—why are you so set on not seeing what’s directly in front of your nose?” When, again, she frowned at him, he hissed in exasperation and clearly enunciated, “Everything he does in relation to you springs from one emotion—love.”
The door at his back opened on the last word.
Therese looked, and Child turned, too.
Devlin walked in, his face a dark mask of vengeful fury.
Beneath his breath, Child muttered, “Oh, sh—”
Chapter 11
Devlin’s lips curled in a snarl, and he slammed his fist into Child’s face.
Child staggered back, stumbled, and fell to the floor. “Ow!”
Open-mouthed, Therese stared at her husband, then flung herself at him and caught his right arm, clamping her hands around what felt like living steel.
His face, his features, were hewn; they made granite look soft as, his body clearly primed for further violence, he glared down at Child.
Shocked, she ducked across Devlin and caught his eyes. “That wasn’t what it looked like.” He’d opened the door in time to hear one word—love—and to see Child holding her by the shoulders. If what Child had told her was true, then Devlin’s reaction was hardly to be wondered at. When he didn’t give any sign of paying attention, she more forcefully declared, “He was telling me about you!”
That penetrated. After a second, Devlin transferred his gaze to her, and the battle-ready tension in his frame eased. He searched her eyes, her face, then blinked. She could almost see the haze of red fury ebb and subside.
“Damn it!” Sitting on the floor, Child was gingerly feeling his nose. He glowered at Devlin in transparent exasperation. “At least this time, you didn’t break it.” Child shook his head. “I would make a quip about you losing your touch, but…”
With an impatient gesture, Child waved them both back and clambered to his feet. He shifted his shoulders and tugged his coat into place, then turned to Therese and glared. “Please say you believe me now.” He pointed at Devlin. “Why on earth do you think he—your pillar-of-rectitude husband—just behaved like that?”
Child transferred his glare to Devlin and snorted. “As for you, what the devil do you think you’re about?”
When Devlin just blinked, Child flung up his hands, stepped around Devlin, and made for the door. “I wash my hands of the pair of you. You deserve each other—far more than you know. You both plot and plan to the nth degree and overthink everything. You think you can control everyone, including each other. At least now, neither of you will be able to pretend anymore. I’ve done my one good deed for the year. I’ll leave you to sort yourselves out—just do me and everyone else a favor and do that!”
Stunned anew, Therese watched as on reaching the door, with his hand on the knob, Child paused, looked back, and stabbed a finger at Devlin. “Just remember—after this, you owe me. A lot!”
With that, Child opened the door. Therese caught a fleeting glimpse of his face as, looking distinctly pleased with himself, he walked out and shut the door behind him.
For several moments, silence held sway.
Then she looked at Devlin. “What did all that mean?”
When he didn’t immediately answer, she narrowed her eyes on his face and asked the rather more pertinent question, “And why did you knock him down?”
She should probably have reacted to that moment of violence in some suitably feminine fashion, but she had three brothers; seeing gentlemen engage in fisticuffs wasn’t new to her.
When Devlin studied her as if wondering where to start, she decided to state the obvious. “You have to know neither Child nor I think of the other in any improper way.”
Devlin grimaced, then sighed and looked away. “I know that.”
Therese peered at his face. “So what was that about?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “I came in and saw him holding you, looking into your face and saying the word ‘love’…and I overreacted.”
Reliving that moment, he clenched his jaw, then opened his eyes. “Let’s just call it a moment of temporary insanity.” Not an inappropriate description for the blind rage that had erupted and taken possession of him, body and mind.
He glanced at Therese and met her eyes. Watchful, waiting eyes. He was fairly certain Child had dropped him squarely in it; he didn’t know if that was a good thing or… “What did he tell you?” He needed to learn what options Child had left him or whether now, he had only one way forward. When she didn’t immediately answer, he recalled Child’s words and amended, “What was it he wanted you to believe?”
She studied his face, then folded her arms. Regarding him steadily, she replied, “He told me that you loved me and insisted he was correct.”
She’d said the words in an even tone, as a matter-of-fact statement, yet he heard the question behind them, the lingering uncertainty she harbored—that she still wasn’t sure whether to believe and was half expecting him to deny Child’s insight and laugh the notion aside…