Page 66 of Scandals of an Earl’s Daughter

“I ordered for us. I hope you don’t mind.”

Ivy eyed the cakes. The tiny portions wouldn’t make much difference to her hips—hips that Cillian had seemed to take a lot of pleasure in not long ago. She held back a sigh. She wanted him to touch her again, to make her feel desirous again. But not when he was behaving so. If this continued, they would truly end up like one of those awful marriages of thetonwhere they were practical strangers.

Or worse.

Where they loathed each other.

Ivy’s chest tightened. She couldn’t imagine loathing him but, at this point, she was mightily furious. However, she could not speak for him. If he was willing to send her away like some piece of luggage being stowed upon a mail coach, maybe he really did hate her.

She took a delicate madeleine cake, popped it in her mouth, closed her eyes briefly and moaned.

“Do not tell me you have been avoiding cake again?”

She opened her eyes. “Not at all.”

“And you are eating well?”

“As well as I can yes.”

Given her husband would not talk to her and kept trying to send her away, eating had not been at the forefront of her mind. She wasn’t starving herself, though. It had been many years since she had done such a thing. It seemed rather pointless these days. There were far worse things happening in the world than her thighs being on the large side.

Ivy poured the tea for them both and added two sugars in defiance of all of those who thought they could comment on her eating habits. “ThatwasMr. Cameron was it not?”

Aunt Sarah shifted in her seat and made a show of flicking out her napkin and spreading it over her lap. “I have no idea what you are talking about, my dear.”

For some reason, her usually outspoken aunt wanted to keep a secret. Ivy would let her. For now. She needed Aunt Sarah

“How are you enjoying all this freedom as a married woman?” Aunt Sarah asked. “Is it not lovely not having to be escorted everywhere?”

If one did not count a retinue of a driver and two footmen and even Muriel at times, then yes, she enjoyed the freedoms of being married. She’d enjoy them a lot more when Cillian was not insisting, she couldn’t even walk alone in the garden.

But she was not about to tell her aunt of their troubles and worry her unnecessarily. Since Harry Marshall had leaped into her curricle, nothing else had happened. She imagined the man hoped to ruin their marriage and perhaps he considered his job done.

She shivered at the idea of him watching them, taking delight in the chasm that had grown between them. They’d been so close to something wonderful, to something that felt, well, an awful lot like love.

Of course, she could not even blame Mr. Marshall for the distance between them.

That was on her.

And Cillian.

If the foolish man would not believe her motives were pure, what was she to do?

“Aunt Sarah.” Ivy leaned in. “I wanted to meet with you because I had to ask…why did you not tell me of the rumors about Cillian?”

“Rumors?” She glanced at her lap and smoothed out the napkin again. “What rumors, dear?”

“When he offered for my hand, I thought there was something strange about your behavior.”

“I’m always strange, darling. Have you not noticed that? It is sort of my thing.”

“Did you know of him and Mary—the lady who died?” Ivy caught her aunt’s gaze.

“It was many years ago and a vague murmur. I was in mourning at the time, so I do not remember an awful lot.” Aunt Sarah sighed. “Did I have some concerns about my niece matching with such a man? Yes. However, I have seen too many people ruined by mere whispers and I checked into Cillian’s background.”

Ivy opened her mouth then closed it. Her aunt had been investigating this whole time?

“They could find nothing untoward, and it seemed he was a man with honorable intentions.” She smiled softly. “Besides, my dear, I have never once doubted your instincts. You have an ability to see the kindness in people that others might miss.”

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