The Countess Page 0,37

between her room and his. Where was the man? She knew from experience she would hear him banging about in there as he prepared for bed, but hadn't heard a peep yet, and he'd left the bal before them.

The sound of her bedroom door opening caught Christiana's attention then and she glanced over to see Lisa poking her head in.

"Oh good, you're awake," the younger woman said happily and slipped inside. "I couldn't sleep either. I was too happy and excited."

"About what?" Christiana asked curiously, managing with some effort to gain a sitting position in the bed. Real y, things would be much easier if the room would just stop bobbling about.

"You and Dicky," Lisa announced as she settled on the edge of her bed.

It took Christiana a moment to realize that Lisa was answering the question of what she was happy and excited about. The realization made her grimace and snort with disgust. "Dicky. Ugh."

"Oh, Chrissy." Lisa sighed and took her hands. "I know that your marriage hasn't been al that you'd hoped for this last year, and that you're upset with him, but it's going to be al right. I promise."

"How?" Christiana asked with disbelief. "The blashted man's alive."

"Yes, and I know you were disappointed about that at first, but everything is going to improve now. You'l see, Chrissy. He loves you." Lisa squeezed her hands. "He does, Chrissy. He has just been tortured by the guilt and loss of his brother. That's why he's behaved so badly this last year."

"What?" she asked with disbelief.

"Don't you see?" she said earnestly. "Poor George died in a house fire in Dicky's home. One he survived himself. He must have been suffering horrible guilt over that afterward. And then he met you and that would have just made it worse, because he fel in love with you and married you and was enjoying a happiness his poor dead brother never would. He must have been racked with guilt, even tortured by it, poor man."

Christiana narrowed her eyes and spoke slowly in an effort not to slur. "Dicky is tortured?"

"Yes." Lisa nodded, looking pleased that she understood.

"So he tortured me?"

Lisa blinked. "Wel , yes I suppose."

"That's not love. You don't take out your frustrations and guilt on someone you love." She shook her head. "He doesn't love me."

Lisa was frowning now. "But tortured, guilt ridden men always torture and hurt the ones they love. It happens al the time in the books I read. The hero is tortured and guilt ridden and is just horrible to the woman, but she is good and patient and her pure love is eventual y rewarded when he discovers the error of his ways and mends them."

"Dear God," Christiana muttered with disgust. This was al her fault. She should have steered Lisa toward more elevated reading than the ridiculous, romantic and tragic stories she tended toward. Sighing, she said, "That is not a true hero, Lisa."

"But - "

"Would you treat Suzie or me horribly because you were sad?"

"I . . . wel , I might be short and snap at you," she pointed out.

"But would you insult us and make ush feel unintel igent or useless? Tel us we had no taste, that no one would want to be our friend except for our title?"

"Wel , no, of course not."

"Why?"

"Because I love you," she said and then blinked and breathed, "Oh. I see."

Christiana stared at Lisa silently, finding herself oddly disappointed that she'd won the argument rather than Lisa convincing her that Dicky might have changed. It would have meant her marriage might have a chance, that she might experience his kiss and see if it affected her as much as his mere proximity and touch had. Wel , if he was Richard and not George, she reminded herself. She kept forgetting that little possibility. That and the fact that she could have the marriage annul ed because it had never been consummated. Surely she didn't want to stay in this horrid marriage?

"But Christiana, can you not give him a chance to change? No one is perfect, and I truly believe he's sorry for what he's done. Besides you are rather stuck in this marriage now."

"That depends on what's on his bottom," she muttered, thinking that if she was married to Richard not George, and he was sorry, perhaps . . . But real y, would the marriage change at al ? One moment of kindness and holding her on the dance floor hardly meant the