Page 105 of A Wicked Kind of Husband

“You are talking utter nonsense again,” she said.

“As are you. Just as well this is nearly over, then, isn’t it?”

“Quite.”

He scowled at her. She glared at him. He folded his arms so he would not pull her onto his lap and shove up her skirts and make her cling to him while he clung to her.

“You said you would visit Sunne Park,” she said into the silence.

“When you need me to impregnate you?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t like to put you to any trouble. Perhaps I’ll take a lover. Save you the inconvenience.”

Like blazes she would. “Better get someone with stamina. You’re demanding in bed, once you forget to be polite.”

“Perhaps you could use your expertise to hire someone suitable. You could call him the Secretary In Charge Of Impregnating My Wife Because I’m Too Selfish And Busy To Do It Myself.”

“That’s a stupid job title.”

“They’re all stupid job titles!” she yelled.

He recoiled, stunned. What the blazes was wrong with his secretaries’ job titles? And what did any of it have to do with her womb? And where had their camaraderie gone and why did she not want him and why was it so hard to breathe?

She gathered herself after her outburst.

“Do you know, Joshua, I shall be glad to return to the peace and quiet of Sunne Park without you.”

“And I’ll be glad to return to Birmingham. Birmingham is the noisiest place on Earth and it is still more peaceful than putting up with you.”

“We need put up with each other for only three more days. If Lucy pleases Grandmother at the ball, Lucy will live with her, and Emily and I will leave. You will aid in that by behavingproperlyat the ball.” She eyed him bitterly. “I trust that getting rid of me will be all theinducementyou need to behave.”

“Getting rid of you is all I want,” he lied. “My behavior will beimpeccable.”

Chapter 24

It was with rue that Cassandra recalled her claim at the first breakfast she shared with Joshua: that they could coexist in the same house and never see each other.

Well, clever them! They had done exactly that! In the three days since their quarrel in the carriage, she did not see Joshua at all. She heard him sometimes, moving about his room at night, while she lay alone in the too-big bed longing for the oblivion of sleep. Once she heard his voice, when he called to a servant; her heart beat faster and her breath snagged—but all she heard next was the slam of a door.

Only thanks to Mr. Newell did she have confirmation that Joshua would join her and Lucy at her grandmother’s ball.

While dressing for the ball, she was grateful for her maid’s brisk competence, for Cassandra was useless, her body jittery with dread and excitement, her mind repeating a futile scold.This is just another ball and he is just another man,she told herself, as Ruth shoved her toward the stairs and darted off to help Lucy.It was always going to end, and now it has.

Yet halfway down the staircase, she had to pause and grip the bannister, for her legs stopped working and the world emptied of everything but the tall, dark-haired man in the hall.

He was pacing, of course, and flicking his white evening gloves against his thigh. His black evening coat hugged his broad shoulders, and her lonely palms ached to slide across those shoulders, down his chest, over his thighs, to feel his power, the heat of his skin through the silk.

Joshua turned his head toward her then and went still, mid pace, mid flick, watching her with dark, unreadable eyes.

Unfreezing her feet, Cassandra concentrated carefully on each step, for her knees had trouble remembering what to do. Heavens, she was behaving like a giddy debutante in the throes of her first infatuation! Yet no debutante knew this searing desire to press her naked, aching body to a man, or this hollow yearning to disappear with him into their secret world of two, or this chilling fear of their unscalable, invisible wall.

She missed him. Even when she stood right in front of him, she missed him.

“What the blazes is that on your head?” he said. “Is some poor pink bird flapping about London with half its feathers missing?”

“This is the part where you tell me I look lovely.”

“Why should I? You just did that yourself.”

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