Dax shuffled his feet. “I suppose it is.”
“I can’t say I did not warn you.” Sebastian studied him, and Dax grew uncomfortable under his friend’s stare.
“I hadn’t realized what a fatal flaw there was in my plan.”
Sebastian turned away, feigning disinterest as a few people shuffled too close as someone pressed through the crowd. When the space around them emptied the slightest bit, Sebastian turned back to him.
“And what have you done to correct this misunderstanding?”
“Nothing.”
Sebastian’s glance was sharp and fast.
Dax frowned. “I wasn’t sure how to go about it without making it worse.”
“You could start by explaining why it is you said what you did. The girl is unskilled in this matter.” He stopped short and peered at Dax directly. “The girl is unskilled, yes?”
“Did you just insinuate that my wife was not a virgin upon our marriage?”
“I don’t see why such a matter may be one of assumed conclusion. Who am I to say what kind of activities your wife engages in?”
“Please stop suggesting my wife is a woman of immoral fiber.”
Sebastian scoffed. “Your wife is hardly of immoral fiber. I’ve never seen a woman with more solid values and an intrinsic sense of good.”
Dax was left momentarily speechless by his friend’s words as he’d never heard Sebastian pay anyone such a compliment.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he finally said. “That doesn’t help the current situation I find myself in.”
“You should be honest with her. Tell her how you feel.”
“Tell her how I feel?” Dax had to struggle to keep his voice down. “The entire point of this farce was to marry a woman so ugly I would never be in danger of falling in love with her.”
He sucked in a breath to calm himself and turned his gaze on Sebastian. Only Sebastian was no longer looking at him. Instead, his attention was fixed just over Dax’s shoulder.
Cold dread seeped through him.
He turned, following the line of Sebastian’s gaze to find his wife standing just behind him, her arm slightly raised as if she had just been about to touch his arm to gain his attention.
“Eliza.” The word rushed from him like an oath on the last bit of air he could successfully pull into his lungs.
His mind melted, one thought colliding into another.
How much had she heard?
Her lips were parted, and her eyes were wide. Her chest heaved with stilted breaths.
She’d heard everything.
She’d heard him call her ugly. She’d heard him call their marriage a farce.
She’d heard him say he could never fall in love with her.
He wanted to touch her. If he could only grab hold of her, he could keep her from falling apart in the middle of a packed ballroom at the feet of a society so critical it would take pleasure in tearing her limb from limb at her weakest moment.
But he couldn’t touch her. He couldn’t make himself draw air, let alone move his body. He could speak to her. He could reassure her that she’d misheard him.
Except she hadn’t misheard. He’d said plainly exactly what his cold, heartless plan had been.
Only it wasn’t anything like that.
What had Sebastian just said? Tell her the truth.
“Eliza, please let me explain.”
She didn’t move. He didn’t know if she had even blinked in the seconds he’d stood before her. Her arm still hung suspended between them, her small hand reaching.
“Eliza—”
“No.”
The word was so soft he almost missed it. One single word that weakened his knees, that dropped his stomach to his toes, that rendered his heart useless.
She dropped her hand, and it was like a guillotine coming down on his neck. One final blow to end him.
She shook her head, the movement gentle and with a painful grace.
“No,” she repeated, louder this time and with an edge of defiance.
Then she gathered her skirts. He watched her do it, each pulse of her arms, each curl of fists, registering with painful exactness.
“No.” This final word was direct, and it hit its mark solidly in his chest.
She met his gaze directly. Her lips had firmed, her jaw tightened. Her eyes—God, her eyes were like daggers, piercing right through his useless heart.
She didn’t say another word. She turned and disappeared into the crowd.
Chapter 6
Ugly.
Farce.
Never be in danger of falling in love.
The words played over and over in a sick loop in her head as she wedged herself between bodies, pushing ever farther into the crowd. Each person she put between herself and her husband was a weight lifted from her lungs. She sucked in air as if there were no more to be had, and she was some kind of guilty thief.
She tumbled from the throng when she reached the periphery. She’d ended up along the refreshment tables, and a few matrons loitered about, sipping at lemonade and commenting on how their slippers pinched their feet. The chaperones should be along here somewhere.
Jo and Louisa had pulled her aside as soon as she’d entered the ballroom, and she couldn’t have been more grateful for them. They’d distracted her from her unending torment and pulled the tension from her shoulders when she had thought it would live there permanently.
But now she needed more than Jo and Louisa. She needed a savior. Someone who could get her out of here, away from this man who had so soundly shredded what little confidence she had.
Her eyes were dry, but her hands shook, her skirts rustling as she pressed once more into the crowd, thrusting herself in the direction where the chaperones must be. Once more she broke free into a lighter space where matrons milled about a line of chairs, exchanging bits of gossip.
There was Viv, resplendent in a gown of sapphire silk that set her hair alight with shots of fire. Eliza rushed forward, heedless of the stares and gawks. She grasped her sister’s arm, and when she turned, Eliza needed to say only one thing.
“Viv.”
She poured all of her earnestness into saying her sister’s name. All of the hurt. All of her anger. All of her despair.
Viv didn’t ask any questions. She didn’t even return her sister’s greeting. She took Eliza’s arm and stormed into the crowd. The crowd always parted for the Duchess of Margate. People fell away to the side either because of the woman’s status or because of the expression of utter domination on her face.
Hell hath no fury after all.
Viv understood what Eliza had poured into her name without having to ask. Viv had felt it, Eliza knew, because Viv had lived it. And Viv would seek revenge for any woman who had endured the humiliation only a husband could wrought.
Unerringly, she found Andrew ensconced in a group of men earnestly discussing the mining situation in Wales and again, she needn’t say anything. Andrew saw the look on her face, and his gaze pivoted, capturing Eliza’s.
Andrew had always been kind to her, a fierce and loyal brother, but she had never seen the hard look that overcame him then. It stilled Eliza’s hands and a full breath of air cascaded into her lungs.
Andrew excused himself and stepped in front of Viv, parting the crowd even more effectively than the Duchess of Margate had. It was only seconds until they spilled into the cool air outside, trickling along the line of carriages still emptying people onto the front steps of the Devonshire estate.