Deene was forming some snappish, off-putting rejoinder in the ensuing silence—he did not care in the least for Anthony’s tone—when a cultured female voice spoke from the door.

“I’ll put the food on the desk, gentlemen, and once again bid you good night.”

Eve had turned her back before Deene could utter a word, while Anthony reached out and plucked a succulent bunch of grapes off the tray, and the door clicked quietly closed.

“She even waits on you hand and foot, Deene. Very well done of you. Well done, indeed.” Anthony popped a grape into his mouth, his smile conspiratorial.

Eve’s voice had been calm and more than civil. She’d spoken with a terrible, ducal cordiality Deene found as unnerving as the prospect of charging into a French artillery barrage.

“You will excuse me, Anthony, and if you ever make such cavalier comments again about the nature of my marriage, my motives for marrying, or my regard for my wife, I will disinherit you, call you out, and aim to at least terminate your reproductive abilities.”

Deene stalked toward to the door, only to be stopped by Anthony’s hand on his arm.

“You are not going to fly into high dudgeon and act the besotted spouse on me, are you?”

“I am in high dudgeon, and I am a besotted spouse, but more to the point, Eve has every right to be in high dudgeon.” She had every right to go home to her parents, to eviscerate Deene in his sleep, to bar Anthony from the house… Deene recalled Anthony’s words phrase by phrase, and aimed a thunderous scowl at his cousin.

“If she’s truly that sensitive, Deene, then give her a few moments to compose herself. She’ll want her guns at the ready before you wrestle her into coitus forgiveness, and believe me, I know of what I speak in this regard.”

He popped another grape into his mouth, the picture of a man undisturbed by what could be the end of Deene’s domestic bliss. Deene’s determination to join his wife wavered in the face of such sangfroid. “You will apologize to her at breakfast, Anthony. You will apologize on your knees and mean it.”

And still, Anthony merely smiled. “But of course. Now, you’ve been pestering me these weeks for a discussion of the profits to be had from the estates in Kent. Pull up that decanter and prepare to listen.”

Now, now when Deene wanted nothing so much as to crawl into his wife’s bedroom and explain that his only adult relation was an insensitive oaf with execrable timing, Anthony started spouting facts and figures at a great rate. The very information Deene had been seeking for weeks, provided in an orderly, articulate fashion.

He listened, he asked questions, he asked more questions, and even though he nearly glared a hole in the door and paced a rut in the carpet, Deene did not join his wife above stairs until it was quite late indeed.

* * *

Eve did not cry. Not this time, perhaps not ever again. She wasn’t going to give the situation that much effort.

She’d been a fool, again, believing herself cared for and valued, when what had been sought was her wealth, her position, her standing, her status.

Perhaps even her body—her womb—but not her heart. Again, she’d tossed the best part of herself at an undeserving, scheming, handsome man, and found her greatest treasure of no value whatsoever.

And where was her husband now? Munching grapes and swilling brandy one floor and several universes of arrogance away. Well, so what? His cavalier behavior gave Eve time to marshal her composure, to recall that if she had given her heart into Deene’s keeping, she could just as well snatch it back without him being the wiser. She’d made no declarations; she’d let no impassioned endearments slip even in their most intimate moments.

Her pride was intact, and she intended to keep it that way.

In the dark, the door to the dressing room eased open. Eve knew exactly the way it creaked, the top hinge being the culprit. She’d purposely not had the thing oiled, because she liked knowing Deene was coming to bed.

“Evie?”

“I’m awake.” A war started up inside Eve’s chest. Part of her wanted to throw herself into Deene’s arms and make him tell her he’d blistered Anthony’s ears for his disrespect of their marriage, and another part of her wanted to order her husband from the room.

“I didn’t mean for you to wait up.”

What was that supposed to mean? “Do you need assistance undressing?”

“No, thank you.” She felt him sit on the bed, heard first one boot then the other hit the floor. “I suppose you have some questions?”

So civilized. The offer was tired, almost casual—not the least wary or apologetic. “About?”

“You overheard Anthony mentioning litigation strategy.”

“You are suing Mr. Dolan for custody of your niece.”

A silence, while Eve flattered herself she’d surprised him.

“How do you know?”

Eve manufactured a yawn while she cast around for a reply. “I use the estate desk too, Deene. The papers were all but in plain view.”

In the darkness, she felt him measuring her words, trying to decide how long she’d known. “You’re not upset?”

“Lawsuits between family members are the very essence of scandal, Deene, but I am merely a wife. If you are determined on this course, I cannot stop you.”

She had intended to plead with him not to file his damned lawsuit. His niece’s entire future would be blighted, and even Jenny’s remaining Seasons would feel the taint. Their Graces would be disappointed, and the idea that Eve’s parents would have to weather one more scandal on her account was enough to make her throat constrict with unshed tears.

“I cannot tell you, Eve, how relieved I am to find what a sensible woman I’ve married. Wresting Georgie from her father’s grasp means a great deal to me.”

He did not sound relieved. He sounded wary, which suited Eve nicely, even as it made her sad. She heard more sounds signaling his end-of-day routine. His cravat pin, cuff links, and signet ring dropping into the tray on his bureau. The doors to his wardrobe opening and closing. Wash water dripping into the basin as Deene wrung out a flannel, then the faint scents of lavender and cedar wafting through the air.

He was coming to bed, just as if Eve hadn’t been served up the miserable truth of her marriage a few hours before. In her idiot, grasping, scheming husband’s mind, nothing was to change.

Seven years ago, Eve had been a victim, little more than a child, and left unable to even walk to the close stool without assistance.

She was Marchioness of Deene now, a grown woman, and not without resources or the resolve to use them.

Deene slid under the covers, a clean, warm, devastatingly skilled specimen of a husband, toward whom—despite all—Eve still felt a damnable quantity of attraction. She rolled up to her side, presenting him with her back, but the lunatic man slid an arm around her waist and spooned his body around hers.

“I am sorry you overheard Anthony’s unfortunate sentiments, Eve. They do not reflect my own.”

“Deene?”

“Hmm?” His cheek rested on her hair.

“I’m afraid I’m at risk for a slight headache tonight. I’m sure you understand?”

She felt the understanding go through him physically. He went still, even to a pause in his breathing. Then his hand settled on her shoulder and began to gently knead her muscles.

“Sleep, then. The last thing I want is to impose on you when you might be suffering.”

She waited, waited for that hand of his to slide around and stroke over her belly or her breast, waited for his lips to presume to touch her nape, waited for him to hitch himself closer so the burgeoning length of his erection pressed against her buttocks.

She waited until his hand slowed then stilled on her shoulder, until his breathing evened out and became measured.

She waited until she was sure he’d well and truly dropped off to sleep, until, with her husband’s arm around her and his body pressed close in the darkness, it was at last safe to cry.

* * *

Deene found himself in the middle of a wrestling match, though it was as if he were doing battle with his own shadow. He could not anticipate his opponent’s moves, could not divine the rules, could not study the combat long enough to find patterns.

At breakfast, Eve was again all cordial smiles, and Anthony charmed by those smiles.

“Deene says you overheard my plain speaking last evening, my lady, and that I must apologize for such blunt speech over the port.”

“Nonsense, Anthony.” Eve didn’t pause as she topped up her teacup. “Deene and I have a sensible union. I understand he did not marry me out of any excesses of sentiment, nor I him, though we are of course fond of each other. Would you like an orange?”

Eve had fired some sort of shot across Deene’s bow with that offhand observation, but Deene was at a loss to know from which cannon it had been launched or at what particular target. She peeled Deene an orange, the same as she did every morning, and put most of it on his plate.

He watched while she munched one of the three sections she’d kept for herself. “I note you are not dressed for the stables this morning, my lady. Might I inquire as to your health?”

“I did not sleep as well as I might have liked. More tea, Anthony?”

She’d slept well enough. He’d been the one to lie there feigning sleep, arms around her, listening to her tears and wondering how many times he was supposed to apologize—except he had the sense his efforts in that direction had only made the situation worse.

“I’ll accompany you to the stables, Deene,” Anthony said. “I’ve been hearing a great deal about your stud colt, and he’s beginning to show up on the book at White’s.”

Deene glanced up in time to see the interest in Eve’s eyes and the way she masked it behind a sudden need to rearrange the eggs on her plate. “People are placing bets on King William?”

“A few,” Anthony replied. “That he’ll win by so many lengths if rematched against Islington’s colt. That Dolan’s colt would beat him on the flat but not over fences.”

“Dolan’s colt didn’t run all last year,” Deene said. “Word is he’s retired to stud.”

“Would that we all…” Anthony had the grace to leave the sentiment uncompleted. One had to wonder if the lady in Surrey missed Anthony’s company at her table if such was Anthony’s conversation.

“I didn’t know Mr. Dolan had a racing stable,” Eve said. For a woman who’d fended off a headache and slept badly, she was putting away a substantial breakfast.

“He has any accoutrement that would proclaim him a gentleman,” Deene said, “except the right to call himself one. Anthony, pass the teapot.”

Anthony obliged, his expression the usual bland mask mention of Dolan provoked.

“Empty.” Deene passed the pot to a footman. “I will miss you in the stables, Eve. Will you ride out with me later?”

She arranged her cutlery. She folded her serviette on her lap. Deene had the satisfaction of seeing she was at least torn.

“It’s a lovely day,” Anthony said. “I’ll be toddling on back to Kent, there to deal with lame plough horses and feuding tenants. Join your husband on his ride, Lady Deene. All too soon he’ll be absorbed in the race meets, and you’ll hardly see him.”

Anthony was trying to help, but Deene resented his cousin’s assistance, implying as it did that Anthony would be working shoulder to the plough, while Deene drank and gambled and frolicked. If Anthony had kept his big mouth shut…

While Aelfreth put William through his paces an hour later, it occurred to Deene that if Eve hadn’t overheard Anthony, Deene would still be left trying to puzzle out a way to explain the custody suit to her. The papers had sat in the desk drawer for days, with Deene making up a new excuse each day for why he did not give the solicitors leave to prime their barristers and fire off the first true scandal of the Season.

“Yon colt is pouting.” Bannister’s tone was lugubrious. “He wants the lady to watch him go.”

“Lady Deene is a trifle indisposed.”

“Then the colt will be indisposed too. Your horse has fallen in love, and though you breed him to half the shire, he’ll not try his heart out until her ladyship is on that rail, watching him go.”

“For God’s sake, Bannister, he’s a horse. He can’t fall in love.”

Bannister snorted and fell silent, leaving Deene to watch as his prized stallion put in a lackluster performance for no apparent reason.