Chapter 20

I remember the day we married. The sun shone. The church was filled—but I only saw him.

~ The Duchess of A

W hen Raina set out to speak to Severin, she'd expected he'd still be angry as he'd been during their wedding ceremony.

A man as proud as Severin, and as committed to his career and bachelor state, would chafe at the bounds of matrimony. For that matter, a man as strong as her husband would lash out at being forced into doing anything he didn't wish.

She'd known all that when she'd made her way downstairs to find him.

Still, she'd hoped they could establish some semblance of peace.

What she'd found was anything but. What she'd met was bitter resentment, horrid accusations, and his burning hatred for Gregory and herself.

Standing just three feet apart, they may have been three worlds away.

His opaque gaze dared her to say something.

For a moment, she feared she wasn't as brave as she'd credited herself as being. But if she shrunk before him, if she ran away, she'd be the one who laid a foundation in their marriage of inequity—one where he was in a position of strength and she, cowed by him.

As he'd pointed out before, the very important truth she knew—he'd never hurt her. That gave her the courage to meet his gaze directly, and at last, speak.

"The way you love your work," she said, trying to strike some kind of accord between her brother whom she loved and the husband whom she also loved, but who hated her brother. "Is the same way Gregory loves his."

"I'm nothing like your brother."

She bit her tongue to keep from pointing out when it came to temperament, personality, and pride, Severin had more in common than he could ever know.

She'd not be side-tracked.

"Gregory offered you a share of ownership in his club, Severin—a venture he began with his oldest and closest friends. Is it so very bad he offered to make you a proprietor, as well? That he did so, long before you," Were part of my life , "worked in my family's house…"

Her words trailed off and she realized too late; she'd said too much.

Fury burned from within Severin's eyes; a blistering, black, rage.

Raina hugged herself tight around the middle in a futile attempt to hide from his hate.

"He robbed me of choice," he hissed, taking a furious step towards her. "From the moment I entered your household, and he offered me a post to serve as your goddamned bodyguard, the only intention he ever had was for me to fall under your spell."

Her cheeks went a fiery red. "You make me out to be some kind of object," she cried.

"That's precisely what you were to Argyll. A means, to my end."

She gasped. "How dare you? Gregory—"

"You'd make excuses for him?" he shouted.

Her pulse pounded. Never in all the times she'd challenged Severin had Raina witnessed him lose control.

He retained his grip so quickly; she might have merely imagined the slip in his composure. "I should have expected nothing less," Severin intoned, icily indifferent.

Raina frowned and tried to make sense of it all. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"The entire plan all along." Severin's hard lips peeled into a hateful sneer. "Was to force my hand and bend me so I was another lackey in his employ. What your brother failed to realize, however, is that I'd sooner end myself than work for or with him."

She drew back. Her mind whirred under those accusations.

What he suggested…No, what he actually maintained, was that Gregory had used Raina as bait to lure and trap Severin.

Raina struggled to find her voice.

Her brother wasn't the affectionate, fully devoted sibling he'd once been, but he'd not sell her like a trollop—not even in the name of Forbidden Pleasures .

She found strength in her outrage. "You'd accuse my brother of making a whore out of me for his own gains?"

His silence rocked the room far more than any verbal or concurrence.

"How dare you, Severin?" she hissed. "How—"

"You can stop with the theatrics, Raina. Argyll didn't even attempt to conceal what you'd both done. He owned the scheme completely."

She furrowed her brow.

Her brother owned the scheme? He wouldn't…He couldn't…

Couldn't he? Driven, ruthless, and single-minded in his obsession with his gaming hell, Gregory, would put it above everything and anyone—including his own sisters.

She squeezed her eyes shut as the weight and horror of that betrayal threatened to double her over.

"He wouldn't," she whispered, her voice raspy.

"He would and he did." Severin flicked another one of those contemptuous stares over her person. "The same, however, cannot be said of his loyal sister."

Wait… another admission Severin made registered.

"…Argyll didn't even attempt to conceal what you'd both done…"

The realization hit Raina hard, robbing her of breath.

"Surely you do not believe I helped him, Severin?" she whispered.

When he didn't say anything, she rushed over and gripped him by his upper arms.

His muscles jumped under her touch.

In disgust.

She released him quickly.

Severin, her husband, thought so little of Raina, he actually believed she'd aided and abetted some scheme masterminded by Gregory?

"Severin," she demanded, her voice climbing and pitchy to her own ears.

"The act grows old, Raina," he said impatiently. "That first meeting when you arrived in your diamond tiara—"

She sputtered. "My b-brother insisted on it!"

Which now made even more, horrifying, sense.

"I don't doubt that." Severin mowed ahead. "Argyll allowing me to be alone with you when any other devoted brother would have sooner seen me dead than stand for a private meeting with his precious sister."

Except, she wasn't precious to Gregory. Maybe she never had been. To him. To Severin. To no one.

Severin wasn't done with her. "Then there was all your talk about our being friends ."

Hearing him recite the na?ve hope she'd carried, sent a blush burning across Raina's face; a blush he undoubtedly took as a sign of guilt.

"You sent me on a merry chase throughout London; leading me to areas you had no place being, all the while knowing I'd follow you into those salacious venues."

"No," she whispered, shaking her head. "I did not want you to follow."

Severin snorted.

That scoffing sound set her teeth to grating. "I didn't. I didn't want a nursemaid. I wanted…" She bit the inside of her cheek hard. A friend and confidante . Just as he'd just moments ago, mocked her over.

"There was the night you found me in the kitchens, Raina."

"I couldn't sleep and you happening to be there was—"

"A coincidence?" Severin quirked a menacing black eyebrow.

Raina cast another desperate glance about.

He'd already found her guilty of the false crimes he now charged her with. Trying to convince him otherwise, was nothing but a waste of time.

Severin brushed hard knuckles along her cheek with such a tenderness it threatened to completely fracture her already splintered heart.

He guided her face to meet his. "What about last evening, Raina?" he quietly asked. "How do you account for your returning to that hallway and your surrender to me in the parlor?"

She'd gone back because she'd intended to profess her feelings for him. But he'd only see that admission as another lie.

Severin drew in a slow, shaky breath, through his teeth. "I thought so."

A fresh onslaught of tears pricked her eyes.

Here she'd believed nothing could hurt more than his derision and hate. But seeing him vulnerable, his eyes strained and glittering with disbelief and pain threatened to level her. For it meant…she'd hurt him.

How could that be possible if he didn't care about her?

Once again, a kernel of hope stirred. "Severin—"

"Your tears," he said in deadened tones that also killed that innocent dream. "Your brother's timely arrival." He paused. "Your apologies…"

"I am s-sorry…I am s-so sorr—"

She remembered all too clearly, as clearly as Severin, what she'd said, and how it would now appear given the circumstances.

"It all makes sense now ," he said, toneless. "And it did then. I was just too blind to see why." For the first time, Severin's anger emerged more directed at himself.

She needed him to know the truth. "I didn't do those th-things, S-Severin," she whispered, her voice catching. "That is, I did, but I did not…"

She closed her eyes.

For…she had, though inadvertently. Given what Severin revealed, she'd been as he'd said, an instrument to help Gregory attain what he'd wanted most. In so doing, Severin had gotten what he'd wanted most, but stuck with that which he wanted least—Raina.

Neither of the two men in her life wanted her or cared about her.

Strangely, only the rejection of this man, the one she'd spend the rest of her days with should inflict the greatest hurt within.

She hugged herself hard.

When she opened her eyes, she found Severin staring at her with that opaque gaze she couldn't read.

"You aren't a man who can be made to do anything, Severin. You rejected my brother's offer of proprietorship." Her throat moved up and down. "Why then, did you agree to marry me? Why ?"

Maybe some small part inside him that he'd not yet acknowledged—

"Argyll presented me with that which he and I both knew, I would never be able to refuse," he said somberly.

What was he saying?

Through an all-encompassing misery, hope blossomed.

Raina dampened her lips. "And what exactly was that?"

For a long while, he just peered at her with an inscrutable expression.

"The man who ended my career with the Home Office," he said, his gaze went all the way through her. "The duke learned his identity and hung it over me so that I can hunt down the man who consigned me to this empty, purposeless, existence here in London."

Before Raina stood a man who'd ceased to see her.

She went hot and then cold inside. A vicious crawling sensation eased along her skin.

The sole reason, Severin had married her was so he might have revenge.

Bile burned the back of her throat.

It hadn't been some gentlemanly sense of guilt and obligation that'd compelled Severin to wed her—which, though, awful in its own right—was nothing compared to this .

Her thoughts continued to spin, wildly out of control.

Preserving her honor and reputation hadn't been enough to—as Severin called it—compel him to marry Raina. Her brother had been forced to tender an even greater enticement.

Feeling like she'd become an outsider looking in on her real life, Raina did a frantic, empty sweep of Severin's office. The walls and ceiling grew smaller. Everything was closing in.

I'm going to be sick…

Through the fog, she detected a flash of movement as Severin moved away from her and returned to the place behind his desk.

"As you're here," Severin shifted so quickly onto a new topic, she suffered whiplash, "it would be best to outline the parameters of our union," he said, as he sat. "As you pointed out, we are," he grimaced, "whether we like it or not, joined forever. Ours will be nothing more than a business arrangement. You won't find me a cruel husband. You'll enjoy your freedom and the benefits which come with your role as countess. You'll have a sizeable alliance, and your dowry, per the contracts drawn up, will remain in your control for you to do with as you see fit.

"For your protection, I still expect a detailed list of your daily plans. You're never to leave without an escort or bring outsiders into this household. Is that clear?"

Was that clear?

Was anything , anymore?

Through the humming in her ears, she gave a small nod.

"You're dismissed, Raina."

With that, Severin returned to whatever work he'd been seeing to, and she was forgotten—just as she'd always been.

Just as she would always be.

Turning jerkily about, Raina headed for the door, and then stopped; her gaze fixed on the sturdy, stark, unadorned panel, so perfectly suited the austere king of this cold place.

"For what it is worth, Severin," she called out softly. Nothing. It would be worth nothing to him. Still, she had to say it anyway. "Gregory did use me. He used us both."

Raina let that truth sit in silence, and when it went answered, she left.