him. It was the only explanation, given that he was so dreadful and infuriating and not at all what she wanted in a husband.
Except that he didn’t want children, and he didn’t want her.
Which is why she would not mention it.
“What the blazes are you doing here?” he said as he hurtled in, shrinking the room to half its size. “Docks are dangerous places.”
“It’s interesting to see where you work.”
Their eyes met, and something shot through her, like a bolt of that lightning that bounced around inside him, like that jolt of pleasure when their mouths met last night.
She could have sworn he felt it too, that something leaped between them, a shared memory, a shared emotion, a shared desire, but he immediately bounded over to the window to check something outside. She remembered the moment when she thought they might be friends; even that seemed impossible in the light of day.
“Work being the operative word,” he said. “Not chatting with my wife.”
“You were chatting with those children.”
“Which was work.”
“You seemed fond of them.”
“They’re potential employees. So stop getting ideas.”
“Ideas?” Her heart thudded. He knew. He knew what she wanted. “Whatever do you mean?”
He picked up a dossier, flicked through it, tossed it back on the desk. Papers slid wildly and he lunged to stop them falling to the floor. “I am busy, Cassandra. I don’t have time for this.”
“It will take less time for you to talk to me than it would for you to remove me. I am feeling particularly tenacious today. Barnacle, remember?”
He folded his arms. She lifted her chin. He narrowed his eyes. She raised her eyebrows. He scowled at her. She beamed at him.
He groaned and ran his hands through his hair, which she knew now was absurdly soft. “I liked you better when you were nice. So what is it? What? What?”
Cassandra dragged her eyes off his hair, pasted on her cheerful, sensible expression, and focused on the matter at hand.
“This issue of Lord and Lady Bolderwood,” she said. “We must discuss what happens next.”
“What happens next is this: I deal with Lord and Lady B. You go back to Warwickshire. Everything goes back to normal.”
Disappointment flooded her and she smiled on. “But Joshua—”
“It’s not your concern.”
“It is my concern.”
She took a step toward him, and another. But an invisible wall between them stopped her from taking a third.
“I must go out into society with everyone believing that my husband committed adultery with the wife of my former betrothed.”
“So don’t go out into society. Go back to Warwickshire. Problem solved.”
“That will not do,” she said. “We must stand united before society and discredit them in everyone’s eyes. With society and public opinion on our side, they may feel pressure to drop this.”
“You believe me.”
“Yes. I do. And a wife stands by her husband.”
He regarded her for a long moment, then he was moving again, prowling around the small space, poking and prodding things for no apparent reason at all.
“Others will too,” she went on. “Lord and Lady Hardbury, of course, as well as Lord and Lady Luxborough. My aunt and uncle Lord and Lady Morecambe, and even my grandparents. We can also count on the support of the Duke of Dammerton. Of course, for the legal aspects, you will need a lawyer.”
“I have a dozen lawyers.”
“They are commercial lawyers. I suggest Sir Gordon Bell, whom I trust implicitly, as he had a long career as solicitor to many members of the aristocracy and is not without influence. Although I propose that our first step is to confront Lord and Lady Bolderwood ourselves and put an end to this today.”
He regarded her a moment. “You sound as if you’re planning a battle.”
“They attacked my family.”
“No, they attacked me.”
“And you are my family.”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“Actually, it does.”
He threw up his hands. “This has gotten completely out of control. Ours is a marriage in name only, remember.”
“Last night—”
“Changed nothing. In name only!”
His roar was answered by the squawks of seagulls outside, and her own cries rose up inside her. Good heavens, what did this man do to her? He made her moods as wild as his own.
“Precisely,” she snapped. “I now carry your name, which means my sisters do too and so your name affects my sisters’ future.”
“Your bloody sisters.”
“And if you don’t want my sisters to be your problem, then help me get them accepted by society and ultimately married, and the best way for you to do that is to agree to my