Page 69 of Not his Marchioness
Charlotte looked back at her. “I am not. I was simply thinking about… nothing.”
“You know,” Evelyn interjected, “I think he cares for you. I’ve seen the way he looks at you when he thinks you can’t see. There is a certain longing in his eyes. The same kind of longing I have seen in yours when you look at him.”
“I do not long for him,” Charlotte protested, knowing it was a lie. “He doesn’t care for me. I am… I am a convenience to him, just as he is a convenience to me. In fact, he went to visit one of his female friends just the other night.”
That silenced her company. Marianne was the first one to speak, while the others were still gathering their thoughts.
“He said so? What do you assume so?”
“I am certain he did. He disappeared in the evening and did not come back until who knows when. I believe the sun was already rising. He did the same thing on our wedding night.”
“I cannot believe that,” Aunt Eugenia said. “Have you asked him where he was?”
“It is not my place to ask him about his whereabouts. I will not be a fishwife haranguing my husband, who isn’t even my husbandin anything but name. He owes me nothing but the terms to which we have agreed. And those terms are almost fulfilled.”
“You truly believe that?” Evelyn asked. “You do not think there’s anything more? When Nathaniel and I were first wed, I didn’t believe there could ever be anything between us. But I’ve come to learn that if I had only spoken to him sooner—if I had told him how I felt—he would have confessed his feelings for me too, and we could have been happy much sooner.”
“Rhys and I are not you and Nathaniel,” Charlotte argued. “It is different. Entirely different. I wish it were not, but it is.”
She couldn’t admit to any of them that her feelings for her husband had grown exponentially more intense over the past few days. It didn’t seem to matter that he kept his distance, that he ran hot and cold. Her heart wanted him. Her mind wanted him. All of her wanted him.
But knowing that he didn’t want her—that he preferred the company of women of ill repute—hurt more than she could express.
“Goodness, Lady Sandler,” Evelyn gasped, and Charlotte turned around.
“Oh, that harlot,” Aunt Eugenia said uncharacteristically, for she was usually the picture of refinement and politeness. “Dear, I think your husband is trying to get your attention.”
“Indeed. I think he wants you to rescue him,” Evelyn said with a chuckle. “Isn’t that part of your wifely duties?”
Charlotte looked over and saw Rhys with a woman. She was older than them, their senior by at least ten years, but it was clear she did not care about numbers. She was dressed much younger, with more skin exposed than was proper.
Under normal circumstances, Charlotte would have admired her independence, her indifference to societal conventions. But as she saw the older woman standing so close to Rhys, touching his shoulder on occasion as she moved, she couldn’t admire her. She couldn’t even consider her sisters’ words that Rhys might wish her to rescue him.
All she could think was that here he was again, with another woman. Showering her with attention. Looking at her with a smile on his lips. While she wasnothingto him.
She was nothing but an obligation, no more than a dog or a cat kept only for catching the mice in the barn. She was nothing to him.
Her hands curled into fists, and blood rushed to her ears. When he smiled at Lady Sandler, something inside her snapped. She was halfway across her uncle’s garden, hearing her sisters call her name in utter confusion, when she realized what she was doing.
She was marching toward her husband.
Lady Sandler took a step back as she approached, and for a moment, Charlotte almost saw herself from the woman’s perspective: an enraged young girl charging forward like an angry bull. All that was missing was her red gown and steam coming out of her ears.
“Lady Ravenscar!” Lady Sandler squeaked. “How good to see you.” She curtsied to signify the difference in their stations.
“Lady Sandler, I am afraid I must borrow my husband for a moment.” Charlotte emphasized the wordhusbandas though it were a weapon.
Lady Sandler blinked so rapidly that bits of charcoal fell from her eyelashes, but she turned and left.
Charlotte took Rhys’s arm and led him into the house. “What are you doing?”
“Me?” he said, obviously perplexed. “I was conversing with a guest at your uncle’s tea party. But what is it you are doing? You charged across the garden as though there were a fire.”
Fire…
Her mind flashed back to what Margot had told her once—that she would know when it caught fire. Well, somethinghadcaught fire, but it wasn’t whatever Margot had imagined between them.
“You were flirting in front of all these people. Our entire charade will come to naught.”
