She leaned forward and touched his hand gently. “Don’t be silly. He is my husband, and anyway, you had no need to worry. We had a row, it is true, and I was upset, but he did not so much as lay a finger on me.”
Will slid his hand out from under hers, covering hers instead in a protective gesture. “If he ever hurt you—”
“He wouldn’t, Will.”
“But if he did. I hope you know you could come to me. And that I would—I would take you away.”
She felt like crying again at that. “Oh, Will.”
“I could keep you safe,” he insisted. “If it came to that.”
She smiled at him, more touched than she could say. And guilty too, that she’d made him feel that way.
“Thank you,” she said. “But there is no need for you to offer your protection, Will, I promise you.”
It was the gentlest of rejections, and she saw him comprehend her. He nodded and withdrew his hand.
Rose picked up her pen and dipped it in the ink. Slowly and carefully, she scored through the ruined page with a series of diagonal lines. When she was finished, she looked at Will. “Now, where were we?”
She didn’t see Gil again until dinner that evening. She slept the rest of the afternoon away, wiped out by the desperate tiredness that sometimes assailed her these days. One of the symptoms of her pregnancy.
If she could’ve got away with a tray in her room, she’d have done so. But it was Gil’s first night here and—well, she had asked him to come, hadn’t she?
She dressed for dinner with more care than usual, selecting a violet gown she particularly liked and having Sarah dress her hair carefully. She looked very well when she was ready, but that didn’t make her feel any less nervous when she finally descended the stairs.
Gil and Harriet were already in the drawing room, and Gil stood politely when she entered. His immaculately cut coat drew attention to his wide shoulders and lean torso. Skin-tight breeches hugged his long, muscled legs. He should look elegantly modern in his evening clothes, but as soon as she saw him, she thought of a warrior. Everything about him was hard and powerful. A rigid tension gripped his shoulders, and there was a stony expression in his eyes that she fancied was for her alone.
“Good evening, Rose,” he said evenly. “You look very fetching this evening.” He forced a smile, and it looked wrong; too civilised and polite, unnatural. His eyes were not warm; they remained hard and watchful.
She greeted him and thanked him, equally civil and polite despite her churning stomach and dry mouth, then turned her attention to Harriet, who was watching them. “Harriet, you must think me quite dreadful to have given you no warning of Gil’s arrival. I’m sorry. I had no idea he would get here so soon.”
Harriet ignored the apology. “Oh, Rose, Gilbert’s been telling me all about how you’re going back to London with him, and then on to Stanhope Abbey! What wonderful news!” She beamed, including them both in her happy gaze.
“I’m glad you’re pleased, cousin,” Gil replied smoothly. “Rose was not looking forward to telling you. I know she will miss you.”
“Oh, and I will miss Rose, but this is—this is just as it should be!” The older woman’s smile was incandescent.
Rose smiled back weakly but was saved from having to reply by the entrance of Tom the footman, who announced that dinner was served.
They trooped dutifully into the dining room and made their way through five courses, though later Rose couldn’t remember one thing that she ate. Nor what they spoke about, though the conversation flowed along, an endless stream of news. News about Weartham, news about Stanhope Abbey, about Gil’s brother and sister and about Rose’s father’s travels abroad. The latest on dits, of which Rose and Harriet had read in Harriet’s beloved scandal sheets but of which Gil, of course, had firsthand knowledge.
Rose contributed to the conversation, but later, in her bedchamber, she couldn’t remember any of it. She only remembered how Gil looked.
She lay in bed, staring into the dark, and saw him again as he’d looked across the table. Subdued, polite, civil. Nothing about him offensive. Nothing warm either. And no hope, she thought bleakly, of more than that from him ever again.
She wished, oh, she wished—but just what she could wish for that would make it better, she didn’t know. None of it could be undone, after all. And if it could be mended, she didn’t see how. The only hope was the baby. When Gil saw his son, his heir, perhaps he would feel differently? Perhaps he would feel differently even if the baby was a girl?
“My wife and I do not live together. We never have, and that’s not going to change.”