A Portrait of Love (The Academy of Love #3) - Minerva Spencer Page 0,67

servant could get to it, eager as hell to get out of the stuffy carriage. He kicked down the steps and turned to assist his wife. She ignored his outstretched hand and held the side of the carriage instead as she descended.

Simon stared at her until she looked up at him and then he offered his arm. Whatever it was she saw on his face, she put her hand on his forearm and they entered the inn in silence.

The innkeeper was ready and waiting and they found themselves settled in their respective rooms in a flatteringly brief amount of time.

Once he’d washed his face in the basin of hot water provided and changed his cravat, he knocked on the adjoining door and reached for the handle.

It was locked.

“My lady?” he called through the heavy wood when there was no answer. He rattled the handle, his temperature rising. Was he really standing on the other side of a locked door from his wife of less than ten hours?

Her muffled voice came from the other side just as he was considering kicking it down. “What do you want?”

“Unlock. The. Door.”

There was a long, annoying moment before the tumbler turned. The door opened a crack, barely enough to expose one eye. “What do you want, my lord?”

“Are you really going to make me converse with you through a door?”

“Yes.”

Simon tapped his foot, his gaze locked on her single gray eye. The pupil was a pinprick, telling him more clearly than words what she felt about him.

“I’m going to have dinner sent up—when do you want it?”

“With you?”

“Yes, with me, in the private parlor.” For one blasted moment he thought she was going to throw the invitation in his face or insist he eat in the public room. Simon honestly had no idea how he would respond.

“I shall be ready in an hour.” The door snapped shut and the lock turned. Simon dropped his forehead onto the rough wood and closed his eyes; this was not an auspicious beginning.

***

Honey sagged against the door and worried her lower lip between her teeth. Why was she behaving this way? He had apologized and she was acting like a shrew. She had agreed to this marriage and now she was behaving as if he had forced it upon her.

You’re still angry that he does not wish to have carnal relations with you.

Even though she was alone, Honey’s face flamed.

“No. I am not,” she said aloud, through gritted teeth.

And then felt like a fool for arguing with herself.

She crossed to her dressing table and stared at her reflection in the mirror, as if seeing herself would help her to admit what the problem was. She hated him, but she still loved him. She shook her head—how was such a thing even possible?

Because he hurt your feelings.

She ignored the voice, pulled the hatpin from her hat, and unpinned her hair—Honey’s crowning glory, her father used to say.

She had to admit that her hair was pretty, even though she wasn’t.

Oh, she wasn’t ugly—she was worse: nondescript.

How she’d yearned to look like Portia Stefani. The half-Italian, half-English woman had features so bold they should have been unattractive. But there was something compelling in her flashing black eyes that was even more attractive than conventional beauty.

Honey adored the delicate, cool beauty of Freddie, or the fairy-like delicacy of Annis. Even Lorelei Fontenot, who could at best be called unusual looking with her small, triangular cat face and bushy black brows, would have been preferable to almost six feet of boredom.

She coiled her heavy braid into a coronet and secured it with a fistful of pins.

That only makes you look taller.

She didn’t care.

Or so she told herself.

Honey had believed that she’d gotten over regretting her unfortunate height and bland looks years ago. It could only be her proximity to Simon that had brought such insecurities back.

Even with his hideous scarring he was mesmerizing. He’d been a very pretty young man, but he was now a battle-scarred Odysseus back from over a decade of war.

But was he back? Had any part of the Simon she’d once known—and loved—returned? It seemed to Honey that his body was here, but other than a few lightning-quick flashes, she’d seen nobody recognizable behind his achingly beautiful eyes.

Not that she was finding this new version of Simon any easier to resist than the old. As snappish and cruel as he could be, he still enthralled her.

“Fool,” she accused her reflection, running her hands lightly over the smooth cap of