“I’m sure your mother was relieved.”
“Ha! She had forgotten her relief by this morning and commenced chastising me the moment I entered her chambers.” He shrugged and then took a drink of wine before turning his attention—and his gorgeous green eyes—back to her. “But none of that matters. What matters is that it is over. There is nothing we can do about the incident, but at least people are not laboring under the misapprehension that I, er, defiled you in the Abingdon conservatory.”
Drusilla dropped her gaze, her face heating at the word and what it meant—not that she had any personal knowledge of defiling. Even now that they were legally married, Drusilla remained perfectly . . . well, filed.
“We shall attend the requisite functions and face down the curious stares, and, I daresay, your reputation will be as pristine as ever by the end of the Season.”
She looked up at his words, a dreadful thought hurtling out of the recesses of her mind. He was staring at her, his smile gone, his gaze speculative. He’d stopped speaking, but the words were pouring off him all the same.
“We needn’t have married, after all, then.” Her voice was thin, reedy. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Visel’s apology would have cleared either of us of any inappropriate behavior. After a brief period of awkwardness, we could have gone on as we were.”
He shrugged, the gesture smacking of fatalism. “There is no point in dwelling on such things, no matter how much either of us might regret it. We must do our best to move away from all this—to put it out of our minds.”
His cool, uncaring stare acted like fuel on a fire and her mouth opened and words started to flow.
“I do hope you are able to bear up under your regret.”
He frowned, and she could tell he was struggling to keep his temper.
Good. She was glad—childishly so, she knew—that she wasn’t the only one who was angry.
“You know that is not what I meant, Drusilla.”
As it happened, she did believe he’d not meant to be insulting, but the knowledge—the certainty and the guilt—that he must bitterly regret the marriage he’d been shoehorned into—burned into her like the most caustic acid, dissolving her tenuous restraint in the process. She was being unfair, but she could not bring herself to be otherwise.
He met her hostile stare with a weary smile. “I know things might appear rather dire now, but our lives will not always be so dramatic or hectic. Things will settle, and we will get back to the way we were.”
“I’m sure you will.”
He put down his half-finished glass, his gaze sharpening. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean exactly what I said. I doubt you will let marriage change your life, will you?”
“I would have you speak plainly, Drusilla.” His puzzled expression infuriated her all the more.
“You cannot really be asking me that? I’m sure all of London knows where you went last night.”
More wrinkles joined the ones already on his forehead. “To White’s?”
“You weren’t there all night, were you?”
“No, I wasn’t.” He shrugged. “What of it?”
An ugly laugh slipped from between her tightly clenched jaws. “What of it? What of it? You threatened me not so subtly last night about what would happen if I were to take a lover, but I suppose the same does not apply to you? Men may have lovers and mistresses aplenty, but a woman must sit at home and endure the ignominy in silence.”
Comprehension dawned, and he sat back in his chair. “Ah, you wish to know where I went last night—or you believe you already know—while you were home reading missives from your paramour?”
“That’s—”
He raised a hand, his lips curled into an unpleasant smile. “No. You have said enough. Let me address your comments, my dear. Yes, you are correct. It is a different situation for a man than a woman when it comes to the taking of lovers. Part of that is because a man cannot bring a surprise home to his wife nine months later.”
Her face heated at the vulgar innuendo, but she refused to be cowed. “I beg to differ, sir. A man can bring home little surprises to his wife at any time.”
His eyebrows leaped up. “And what do you know of such surprises?”
She gave him a look of scorn. “Please, such matters may not be spoken of in polite conversation but they are common knowledge, not to mention a very common fear among married women. A