Page 99 of A Wicked Kind of Husband

“Why would she? What about us? I only wanted…Damn.” Isaac shoved back his chair so roughly the table shook. He limped over to the sideboard and got another drink. Isaac drank a lot, now Joshua thought of it, and he wondered if he should say something. Cassandra would know.

“Miriam is eighteen and I would not recognize her, or even my own mother,” Isaac said. “What a bastard.”

“Who? Me or you?”

With a short, joyless laugh, Isaac shook his head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You seemed hopeful. I didn’t want to disappoint you.” Isaac was staring at nothing. “Do you still think I should tell Cassandra about Mrs. O’Dea?”

“You don’t want her thinking badly of you?”

And there it was. Joshua would break Cassandra’s heart and sully her memories of her father because he could not bear that she thought badly of him.

“Right. That’s that, then,” Isaac said, after a long silence. “This matter with Lord B. is almost over and no family to look for…I guess it’s time to move on.”

“What will you do?”

“I don’t know anymore.”

“Stay, then. There’s plenty of room and if you want a job or anything…” He didn’t know what to say. “Cassandra likes having you around.”

It was rubbish, but Isaac seemed to understand. He nodded, perhaps he even smiled, and that was settled.

Joshua willed himself to stand on legs that were too heavy. Too many memories and dreams haunted him and a hollow dread churned in the pit of his stomach. He could sit here all night, but for Cassandra, alone in her room, thinking badly of him.

He pushed back his chair. “I must have a conversation with my wife.”

* * *

Cassandra tried to get comfortable,but the bed jacket tangled about her legs, and the nightcap twisted on her head, and the bed was too big and empty. Well, she had better get used to it again, because tonight she would sleep alone. Not even with Mr. Twit, who still preferred Joshua’s bed.

Another traitor.

It is not a wife’s place to mind. Ha! Her own words rang mockingly in her ears. What a smug, naive fool she had been. Easy to spout such nonsense when one is not truly a wife. Her mistake had been to believe anything had changed. Everything had changed for her; nothing had changed for him.

She lay still only when she heard Joshua enter his own room, her ears straining at every sound, and when the connecting door eased open, she feigned sleep. The mattress sank as he sat on the side of the bed. He said nothing and she dared not breathe.

Which is probably why he knew she was awake.

“I’ve a ship leaving for New York tomorrow,” he said quietly. “We can put Lucy on it, if you’d like.”

A reluctant laugh slid out of her and she flopped over onto her back. “Britain’s last war with the Americans ended only recently. Send her there and we’ll start another one.”

In the faint light coming from his room, she could make out his shape, but not his expression. He made no move to touch her, and she sensed an uncharacteristic lack of energy about him that frightened her. She pressed her hands against her stomach, as if she could massage away the dread.

“I know I said I did not mind.” Her voice sounded small in the darkness. “And when I said it, it was true. We were strangers then. But I do mind. I don’t want to mind, but I do.”

He shifted on the bed, but said nothing.

“You never promised to be faithful.” She hated that her tongue tripped on that word, hated that he heard that, that now he knew. “But you did promise to be honest.”

“You are the only woman I have touched in nearly a year. You have disrupted my life so thoroughly that I would never have space for anyone else.”

She studied his dark shape. “You visit another woman.”

“Her name is Mrs. O’Dea. She has nothing to do with me. She was…” He leaped to his feet, but even though he roamed restlessly about the room, she sensed a flatness about him, a reflection of the odd bleakness she had noticed earlier in his eyes. It made her want to comfort him and she hated them both for that.

He stopped at the foot of the bed, like a visiting angel of doom.

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