old prick and my stepmother. You’re quite Machiavellian, Lady Welles.”
If she had dared to come any closer, Margaret would have slapped Welles across his beautiful, smirking face. “I didn’t do this. You did.” He’d whittled down the most beautiful night of her life to nothing more than sexual manipulation. The dread settled firmly in the center of her chest.
“He’s not going to win. I’ll have no children. No heir for him to coo over.” His eyes ran down her form. “Go to bed, Lady Welles. You will wait in vain for the consummation of this marriage.”
The words struck her hard, the hatred of his father thickening the air between them.
Gathering her courage, Margaret leaned in, sorely sick to death of his bitterness and anger, particularly the parts directed at her. “I am exhausted with your moods.”
“Ah, there she is. It’s unfortunate I don’t want her here.”
“I grow weary of your temper tantrums. Your wild accusations. Your inability to be happy because it is so much more important to hang on to your bitterness. Your father will die, surrounded by his loving wife and daughters, and you will still be miserable. Your mother will still be dead.”
“Get. Out.”
“Since I am now free to take lovers, perhaps I shall.”
His fingers tightened on the glass and Margaret waited for him to hurl it at her.
“Just remember,” she said in a low tone, daring to whisper close to his ear. “It was Carstairs I wanted.” She refused to play meek and mild another moment, especially not for this man who’d demanded otherwise from her the entire time she’d known him.
He sat in the chair unmoving, refusing to look at her. After a few moments, Margaret wrapped her dignity about her and strode to the door, flinching only when the sound of glass breaking in the fireplace met her ears.
Once upstairs, Margaret tossed the cloak aside and looked into the fire. She would not sit back and put her own desires on hold until Welles came to terms with their marriage. And she refused to walk daintily around him while he wallowed in resentment, pretending it didn’t bother her.
The sound of the front door slamming echoed up the stairs.
He would probably live at Elysium for a time. Maybe forever.
Daisy arrived later with a quiet knock and began to help Margaret get ready for bed. When she pulled out a silky nightgown meant for her wedding night, Margaret waved her away. Her husband’s accusations had devastated her. Welles had meant to push her away and he’d succeeded. Brilliantly.
The maid left her with a murmured good night, and Margaret climbed into her bed. She was used to being unwanted. Unloved. Margaret had existed in such a state since her father’s death. Welles doing much the same was a disappointment, but not unexpected.
Tomorrow, she would visit her father’s solicitor. The sum to come to her upon her marriage would now be hers entirely to do with as she wished. If nothing else, Margaret meant to have a rich, fulfilling life. Welles could go hang.
For the moment.
32
“Do you plan to live here indefinitely?”
Tony looked up from the desk in his rooms at Elysium—he’d been reviewing some of the accounts—to see his brother enter.
“Do you ever knock?”
“If you are moving in, you should have a bed brought up. You’ve room for it now since the piano is gone and it must be bloody uncomfortable to sleep on the chaise every night.”
“The chaise is fine.”
Leo took hold of one of the chairs by the fire and dragged it over to Tony’s desk. “I can’t imagine what is keeping you at Elysium. Do you not trust me to handle the accounts? Or are you hesitant to return to your bride after behaving like an ass?”
“We may have had an argument.”
Leo shook his head. “I assumed as much.”
After his wedding night during which he and Maggie had snarled at each other, Tony had retreated to his rooms at Elysium. He needed time to think, something he couldn’t do with Maggie in such close proximity.
“Averell sent me a congratulatory note. Did I tell you, Leo?”
“I thought he might.”
The note, written in his father’s shaky hand, had set a match to Tony’s already combustible emotions. He’d exploded, sending bits of verbal shrapnel all over the one person who least deserved it. Rage at his father and guilt over betraying his mother led him to accuse Maggie of conspiring to trap him in marriage. She’d stood fearlessly in the face of his hostility and with a