Chapter 23

"Good evening," Torie choked out, feeling extremely awkward.

Dominic sat down at her dressing table. "We have much to discuss."

She didn't care. How long did he have to stay in her bedchamber in order to convince the household that the marriage was consummated?

Torie hadn't slept more than an hour the night before and spent the day being buffeted by emotion. She was desperate to sink

into sleep and forget her marital state altogether.

"Most guests assured me that you will be a marvelous mother," Dominic continued, stretching out his legs.

"Yes, they seem to have settled on that as your motive for marriage," Torie said, twisting a piece of fine linen sheet between

her fingers. She had no intention of telling him about the condolences she received.

At least from now on no one could warn her that she was making the mistake of her life. She had already made that mistake.

"Sir William graciously informed me that he considered my ten thousand pounds repaid."

Torie grimaced. "You didn't give him any more money, did you?"

"No. Just so you know, he requested another eight thousand, but I informed him that his daughter had forbidden it."

That explained why Sir William had been more acerbic than usual. It also explained why he had banged on her bedchamber door in the wee hours of the morning and drunkenly advised her not to marry that "ruthless bastard."

"I did pay for the wedding breakfast," Dominic added, with the air of someone confessing one of the seven deadly sins. "I

had the distinct impression that otherwise Sir William might entertain our guests with stale bread and water. No, I take that

back: bread and brandy."

Torie began pleating the hem of her sheet, trying to suppress her conscience's insistence that she'd been sold. Or bought.

How different were these payments from a dowry and jointure, after all? Women were traded on a market basis, and she should

be grateful that her price was anything close to her sister's.

The silence between them felt as thick as a brick wall.

"Did Mrs. Flitwick give you a tour of the house?" Dominic inquired. And at her nod, "Was the room designated as your studio

acceptable? Flitwick had your paint and easels moved while we were at church."

"I'm afraid that I need a room with a better light," Torie said. "Flitwick was most understanding and plans to move everything

again tomorrow. We must sacrifice the breakfast room, but Flitwick tells me that the dining room is more convenient for him

and the footmen."

Beginning tomorrow, she would focus on raising Florence and Valentine. She might even begin a new painting in her series of

"time" still lifes: dead flowers this time. Withered, dead flowers, thanks to Persephone's time in the underworld.

That subject could qualify as "mythological," which was more highly regarded than simple floral arrangements.

"The servants have migrated to your camp," Dominic said. "This morning Flitwick came damn close to giving me some sort of

paternal advice, which would have had him fired on the spot."

"You cannot fire Flitwick!"

"Why not? You plan to fire Nanny Bracknell."

Torie choked back a retort. Dominic's face was etched with lines of exhaustion and savage tension, so she wasn't the only

one who'd had a hard day. A rotten wedding day.

"Would you like a drink?" he asked.

She swallowed hard, trying to keep pent-up tears from falling. "Yes, thank you."

Dominic pulled a flask from the pocket of his dressing gown. "Your father handed it to me before the wedding. He did the same

thing before telling me of Leonora's flight, so I decided he was boozing me up before you jilted me at the altar. Making his

daughters two for two." He poured golden liquor into her water glass. "I was certain that you planned to jilt me, to be honest,

but I owed it to you to show up and let you do it."

She frowned, trying to make sense of what he was saying. "I suppose I could have run away last night with the Duke of Queensberry,

as Leonora did with Lord Bufford."

"No, in fact you could not." He handed her the glass and sat down again at her dressing table.

"You couldn't have stopped me." At his silence, Torie sat bolt upright. "Dom, what did you do?"

He regarded her with a mutinous expression. "I would have done anything to win you. To keep you."

Her eyes widened. "He isn't in the river, is he?"

Dominic cocked an eyebrow. "You think me capable of murdering an innocent man? Well, he did have designs on my betrothed, but you were fair game. If he tries wooing my wife, he might end up in the Thames."

"I think you are far too used to getting your own way," she snapped.

"I paid off his tailor's bill, in return for which he has been enjoying a prolonged visit to Bath," Dominic said without a

flicker of remorse.

Torie swallowed hard. "The duke agreed to that?"

"There was no coercion involved, if that's what you mean." His eyes softened. "Queensberry is genuinely infatuated with you,

Torie, but he was at that performance of Romeo and Juliet . He watched us kiss. I offered him an escape from the pity he was being served at his club. I don't blame him for taking

it."

"I blame him! And I blame you, too! How dare you move us around like chess pieces?"

"I can't help being the sort of man who plans ahead," he said coolly. "I didn't want to make it easy if you lost your nerve.

I'm aware that Bufford was escorting Leonora hither and yon in the weeks before she ran off with him."

Torie put the glass on her bedside table and went back to pleating her sheet. Humiliation was burning down her spine. Her

husband had essentially paid off the man whom she might have married in his stead. "How much?" she asked.

"Pardon me?"

"How much did it cost to send the duke to Bath?"

Silence, then: "Are you sure you want to know?"

"Oh, definitely. A woman should always know her value, don't you think? We're trained to evaluate each other by our dowries, but I have been startled to learn that unreported rates are so significant."

"The duke owed his tailor three thousand," Dominic said. "He complained that his pink embroidered coat alone cost eight hundred

guineas. Sewn with glass diamonds, apparently."

"Charming," Torie said, keeping her voice steady. "You did this before the Vauxhall incident? In other words, while we were

still getting along?"

She stole a glance at Dominic from under her lashes.

He was watching her steadily. "You were having second thoughts before I went to Vauxhall."

True enough.

"I never felt more grateful in my life than when you said ‘I do' at the altar. Sir William had had time to convince you otherwise,

and I was handicapped by my promise not to pay him off."

"So you paid off the duke instead."

He nodded.

"Actually, my father isn't very concerned either way," Torie said, still fussing with the sheet.

"Were you aware of the betting books?"

Torie looked up.

"Your father bet fifty-to-one that you would leave me at the altar. I'm afraid he's considerably poorer this evening."

"Extraordinarily offensive," she muttered, feeling her gut twist. None of the men around her gave a damn about how much they

embarrassed her.

"Other wagers followed that pattern, but at least they weren't made by family members."

"Did those wagers agree with my father?"

"The odds were in favor of your flight, which made sense since gossip has been focusing on my temper as the reason for Leonora's marriage to Bufford."

"How do you know?" She couldn't imagine him sharing a cozy chin-wag with friends in his club.

"I told my valet to round up all the relative newspapers and summarize what was said of us."

"When?"

"When what?"

"When did you order your valet to collect the gossip sheets?" Torie asked.

"Three weeks ago."

So he had to have known that reporters would cover his outing with Gianna.

He shook his head at her angry look. "I was a fool. The fact that they would report my appearance at Vauxhall never occurred

to me. How close did you come to leaving me at the altar?"

"Not close. I had made a promise."

"So did your sister."

"Not to you , to the twins," she said miserably. "I couldn't bear to let them down."

She picked up the glass he'd given her, but after years of smelling brandy on her father's breath and clothing, the smoky,

spicy scent nauseated her. She put it back down. "I would never have left you at the altar. I would have informed you in person

so that you could send a notice to the paper."

He nodded, his stubborn jaw relaxing, apparently happy to hear that she avoided publicly humiliating the people in her life.

"Thank you. Did Florence tell you that she would like to pay Leonora a visit? One of the servants told her that all three

of Bufford's former wives haunt his castle."

"I received a kind letter from my sister this morning," Torie said.

"What does my former fiancée think of our wedding?" His voice was so derisive that if Torie hadn't known better, she would have assumed that Leonora had broken his heart. But no, she had just wounded his pride by choosing an elderly peer and a castle crowded with ghosts over his magnificent person.

"Leonora was surprised to learn that I had received a proposal from a duke."

Dominic's eyes took on a sardonic gleam. "I hope you told her that you took her nursery lessons to heart and refused the duke

for the better title."

"Of course I didn't!"

"Is she happy up there in Scotland?"

"She says so."

He took a swallow of brandy straight from the flask, since she only had one water glass.

"Would you mind not drinking that in my room?" Torie asked. "I'm afraid that the smell brings back bad memories."

Whatever Dominic saw in her face must have been convincing, because he walked over to pick up her drink. "I forgot that I

have a wedding present for you." He pulled a folded sheet from his coat, dropped it in her lap, and then went to the window

and poured the contents of her glass and the flask into the street.

Torie opened the page, thinking he might have drawn another sketch. But no, it was a letter. As usual, the writing was unintelligible,

made up of shapes running in wavy lines like childish depictions of the sea coming to shore.

"I hope you find him satisfactory, because I've already hired him," Dominic said, seating himself again. "Langlois trained at the école de Mars in Paris, which is supposedly a good place. Should be able to teach you how to paint any number of things other than rabbits, perhaps even people."

"Dom," she said, and cleared her throat, folding the sheet back up.

"You don't care for him? I can find someone else."

"I can't read this," Torie said. In the silence that followed, she added, "I gather it's a description of a Monsieur Langlois?"

"What an idiot I am," Dominic breathed, his voice rough with regret. He came over and sat down on the edge of the bed. "I

muffed it. I'm sorry. I was thinking about how difficult your father's love of brandy must have made your childhood, and I

didn't consider what I was doing."

"It's all right." She had learned long ago that there was no point to whining about honest mistakes. "Do tell me more about

the painter." Her voice sounded husky, thickened not by tears but by the fact Dominic had seated himself so close to her.

His hair was still damp from a bath, and he wasn't wearing a nightshirt, given she'd just glimpsed his chest through a gap

in his robe.

Perhaps he was naked. Her imagination rocketed into improprieties.

"May I sit beside you?"

She silently moved over, watching as Dominic kicked off his slippers and sat down, atop the sheet rather than under it. His

feet were strangely sensual, with powerful toes. Hers were like pink snail shells in comparison.

"The man's name is Eustache-Hyacinthe Langlois," he said. "Well-thought-of in France, and here in London due to the wars.

He's happy to tutor all three of you to paint more than rabbits."

Torie ground her teeth. Her husband didn't mean to be so condescending. He didn't know that a lady unable to read from a book or sheet music might focus on painting as the only ladylike skill available and make it the linchpin of her... of everything.

She murmured something vaguely grateful.

"He'll sup with us," Dominic said. "He's the son of a baron, so we can't have him belowstairs. Have you seen Valentine's latest

attempt? It looks like a clamshell with long ears. I think part of the problem is that he's never seen a rabbit."

Then: "What's wrong?" he asked, tilting his arrogant, beautiful head to the side.

"Nothing," Torie said lightly, employing skills gained by years of disguising embarrassment. "It will be a pleasure to be

tutored by Monsieur Langlois. When will we meet him?"

"In a week or so."

"I don't have a formal wedding present for you, but perhaps you would like the painting that I just finished. You thought

it ‘meticulous,' which I take as a compliment."

"I meant it as such. Your petals, the fallen ones, were very precisely detailed. I am honored by your gift."

Torie raised an eyebrow. "Truly?"

"Of course."

She looked back at the linen sheet. "A number of my friends have hung my pieces, but my father has always declined."

"I couldn't paint a daisy," Dominic said. "I don't know how to talk about art, but in my life, ‘meticulous' is high praise."

"Because you place such a premium on honesty," she guessed.

"One must be meticulous in presenting facts that might change a nation's course." He hesitated. "Can you tell me about the blue ink at church?"

She might as well disclose every wretched shortcoming. "I can only sign my name in blue ink. I cannot make my signature intelligible

in black." A ragged breath escaped her mouth.

If she'd had any inkling of the multifold humiliations involved in marriage, she would have happily jilted him and chosen

to be an old maid.

"And you couldn't read the parish book," Dominic said, working it out in his head. "Can you read your own name?"

"No. I cannot read anything. That includes signatures."

Thick silence descended between them again.