shaken. Bruised.
She should feel elated with tonight’s work. Instead, the evening had left her feeling awkward. Unsure.
Aside from a fleeting kiss on signing the marriage lines, Marco had made no effort to exercise his conjugal rights. Oh, he had been anxious enough to toss up her skirts when the act was immoral, she thought with an inward grimace. But now that it was perfectly proper to take her to bed, he seemed to have lost interest in her.
It should come as no shock. She had always heard that the chase was what attracted a rake. Illicit trysts were far more titillating than conventional arrangements.
The heavy tread of his steps in the gloom sounded like a funeral dirge. No doubt he was already mourning the death of his devil-may-care bachelorhood. She had seen the way his gaze had been riveted on the baroness’s half-bared bosom. Lust. Longing. The taut stretch of gossamer silk had left little to the imagination regarding the other half.
Kate glanced down at her own chest. Compared to the elegant, worldly women gathered here in Vienna, she didn’t measure up. They wore brilliant baubles, dazzling mere mortals with their glittering jewels, opulent gowns, and sophisticated charm. While she was as skinny as a boy and blunt to a fault in voicing her opinions. Men didn’t like that. Or so it seemed.
As they started up the last flight, Kate slanted a surreptitious look at her husband. In the guttering flame of the tallow candle, Marco’s face was drawn tight, the beautiful bones smudged by brooding shadows. He looked miserable, and who could blame him?
Her foot caught on the rough planking and she stumbled.
“Steady, cara.” Catching her around the waist, Marco drew her close, his solid, muscular body steadying her trembling legs.
It was, she knew, revoltingly romantic, but he reminded her of the knight in armor who had greeted the Emperor’s guests on his snowy white charger. A shining hero.
Only a silly schoolgirl would entertain such dreams.
“Just a few more steps and we are there,” murmured Marco.
So close. And yet the distance between them seemed to stretch like a great black chasm.
His key scraped in the lock and the iron hinges creaked open.
Hot tears welled up against her eyelids as the door fell shut behind them. How ridiculous to be pining after her own husband. She knew he didn’t care for her. This was a job. And she was an inconvenience, nothing more.
“Dio Madre.” Muttering an oath, Marco shrugged out of his coat and struck a flint to the oil lamp. A spark flared to life, casting a pool of light over his torso. Pale as Carrera marble in the soft glow, the crisp linen shirt accentuated the sculptured lines of his shoulders. “Thank God that is over. If I had to taste another morsel of foie gras, I might expire on the spot.”
He set the lamp on a side table and turned, silhouetting how the burgundy embroidered waistcoat tapered to his lean waist.
“Excellent work, Kate. Without you, this mission would be impossible,” said Marco, reaching out to take her shawl.
Kate pulled away and hurried into the bedchamber. Yanking off a satin slipper, she threw it down. It skittered across the planked floor.
He raised a brow.
Damn him. She would not let him see her snivel or beg for his affection. The other slipper hit the wall with a satisfying slap.
“Is something wrong, cara?”
“No.” Untying the tabs, she stepped out of her gown and kicked it across the woven rug.
Taking up a candle, he came to stand in the doorway. “Did I say something to upset you?”
“No.” Awkwardly yanking at the strings of her corset, Kate wriggled free of the stays. A crack of whalebone warned that she wasn’t being very ladylike about her actions, but she was too furious to care. Muttering an oath, she flung the garment at the dressing table chair.
“Do you always destroy your clothing after a fancy dress ball?” Marco carefully picked up the squashed silk gown and shook it out. “I had no idea I’d wed such an expensive wife.”
“You had no idea because you never had any intention of taking a wife.” At the sight of his bemused smile curling in the candlelight, all her simmering fears and frustrations exploded. “Well, now you can bloody well pay for it.”
Jerking around, Kate meant to march for the washbasin, but her thin shift snagged on the armoire latch. A sharp rip rent the shadowed silence, and a flap of delicate lawn cotton fell away, baring her