The Devil Wears Tartan by Karen Ranney Page A

she’d uttered the same kinds of statements herself at many a social gathering. She’d also been hideously bored at the time.
    “Please,” she said, gesturing toward his soup. “You mustn’t wait for me. I’d feel much better about interrupting your dinner if you’d continue.”
    “I truly did not expect you.”
    She nodded, accepting that. All the same, she wondered what, exactly, Mrs. Murray had told him.
    “I’m not someone with whom you have to converse endlessly. Silence is a blessed thing in a great many circumstances. I’ve been surrounded by chattering women all day. A little peace would be commendable.”
    A few moments of silence passed between them. Although she was extremely conscious of his presence, the moments were not uncomfortable.
    “I find being married an unnatural situation,” he said finally. “I’m not used to having a wife.”
    “Then pretend I’m a guest in your house,” she suggested.
    An intimate guest, one with whom you might share a bed .
    Would it be possible for them to have such a relationship? Did such a thing like that happen? It must, given human nature and the fact that people find pleasure where they will.
    “Most of the guests have left. My uncle invited them, and he was instrumental in banishing them. Only two remain, and they’ll be gone by morning.”
    “Had you no friends you wished to attend your wedding?”
    He put his spoon down and regarded her as if she were a troublesome puppy.
    “Then perhaps I shouldn’t be a guest,” she said beforehe could speak. “Unless, of course, you wish to banish me. Where shall I go? Back to Edinburgh?”
    He didn’t respond. Silence stretched between them, marked only by Davina’s thanks to the footman when he brought her meal.
    Marshall kept her company while she ate, but it was all too obvious, when he pushed his bowl an inch or two away with his thumb, that he had no interest in food.
    “You truly have no appetite, then? Are you ailing?”
    He began to laugh, such a strange reaction that she halted in the act of eating and stared at him.
    When his burst of merriment was done, she commented, “Surely it was not that much of a jest.”
    “On the contrary, lady wife, it is more amusing than you know.”
    She placed the fork on the edge of her plate, blotted her lips with her napkin, and then deliberately took a sip of her wine before speaking again.
    How odd that each gesture seemed slower than usual, as if her body were preparing her for what her mind was about to learn.
    “Are you truly ill, Marshall?” she asked softly. “Is that the reason you wanted to marry me, someone you’ve never seen before?”
    He smiled, that curious half smile she was beginning to know. This time, however, there was a touch of mockery to it.
    “I didn’t feel it necessary to meet you, Davina, because I knew all of the important things about you.”
    “From your solicitor? He doesn’t know me well enough.”
    “I know you are of a certain age, that you are as described, a woman, healthy, and capable of bearing children.”
    “I don’t know,” she said, “whether I am insulted, confused, or sad.”
    “There is no reason to be insulted. On the contrary, most marriages are like ours.” He glanced at her. “I forgot, except for your parents’ idyllic union, of course. What a pity that you had to grow up thinking that love was something one found within a marriage.”
    “I’ve seen enough of society’s marriages, Marshall,” she said, pasting a smile to her face, “not to judge everything by my parents’ example.”
    “As to confusion,” he continued, “I don’t know why you would feel any of that. I’ve made myself abundantly clear, I believe.”
    “And sadness?” she asked softly.
    “That is your choice, Davina. I do not doubt that a great many women would commiserate with you, being married to the Devil of Ambrose.”
    He picked up his wineglass and studied her over the rim of it. “I do respect you, you know.