Page 22 of Cora
“And afterward?” he said, ignoring her silentget out.“I expect the dog to remain with your maid for the night.”
Cora whipped around, but he had already disappeared throughthatdoor. The one connecting their bedchambers, which she had no way to bar shut.
* * *
Gideon madehis way blindly across his room and stared out at the winter garden below.
He’d stolen her joy.
He hadn’t meant to. Didn’t understand, until now, what he’d done. Young Cora had loved to play music, until he ruined it for her with one callous and cruel trick.
It didn’t matter that he’d done it to save her from worse. He had been the one to deliver the killing blow, and then he’d rubbed salt in the wound with his wedding gift. Did she feel the same way about the dresses he’d ordered? How had he misread her so badly?
He’d been obsessed with a girl barely out of finishing school. He had married a woman with a spine and mind of her own. Every fantasy he had nurtured for eleven years was just that: a figment of his imagination. Nothing more.
Unthinking, he fisted a curtain and yanked. He only meant to close it, but the rail came crashing down, hitting his alarm clock and shattering the glass before the whole mess went tumbling to the floor.
A low growl tore out of him.
This was not the way he had anticipated his wedding day unfolding.
“Clean that up,” he barked at the footman who had come running to ensure he was all right. “Don’t let Mrs. Wentworth see the mess.”
He had lost control. He could not afford to do so again. Gideon shouldered into his greatcoat and went downstairs to his private boxing gallery, where he pounded out his frustrations on a bag of sand suspended from a rafter until the toxic brew of his emotions subsided.
Having regained his composure, Gideon returned to his own rooms to wash up. He found his wife sitting at the supper table. She hadn’t waited for him. Cora arched one feathery brow when he strode in, sat, and silently began cutting into his steak.
“You were gone a while.”
Gideon grunted. He was barely capable of speech around her.
“I have met with Mrs. Lawton and Mr. Faux. We have agreed that Titi will be confined to my chambers whenever I am not at home, and that Miss Marnie will be responsible for letting her out at regular intervals into the garden. She will not cause any trouble, I assure you.”
Gideon heard a whine and glanced down. Twin shoe-button eyes stared up at him. One tiny paw was cocked as if to shake hands. The dog’s tail wagged.
He shook his head. “Ridiculous name.”
“Do you not enjoy the plays of Shakespeare?” Cora asked acidly.
“I do.”
“Then surely you recognize the source.”
Gideon pinned her with a glare. Cora smiled innocently, but there was a shark-like edge. Desire jolted through him. She was more beautiful than ever. She was different now. Confident, where she hadn’t been before.
He found her just as alluring.
“I have seenA Midsummer Night’s Dreamcountless times. Do not insult my intelligence.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she returned dryly.
Was that a hint of amusement dancing in her ice-floe eyes?
The dog gave a high-pitched bark. He sighed and offered a shred of pork in gravy. Titania took it gently and darted away, guarding her prize jealously.
“You shouldn’t feed her from the table. It teaches her to beg.”
Gideon refrained from admitting that he simply wanted one of the two new females in his life not to resent him on principle. “She isn’t much of a guard dog.”
