The Sinner by Madeline Hunter Page B

temperament. She does not expect me to sit in attendance on her for several weeks, as if we have entered a period of mourning.”
    He did not add that their one week of togetherness had been an exercise in strained, careful politeness, relieved only by the distraction of settling him into Fleur’s house. His wife had not appeared surprised or disappointed to see him leave this evening.
    “Very open-minded,” Colin said.
    “Isn’t it,” McLean drawled. “Although her mother’s husband may not see it that way. I daresay he will fill everyone’s ears with a different interpretation.”
    “Farthingstone? Has he been spreading tales?”
    “McLean is just being indiscreet, as usual,” Colin said.
    “What is my wife’s stepfather saying?”
    “That you have taken advantage of an addled woman, in whom you have no interest beyond her fortune,” McLean said. “Don’t give me that severe stare, Burchard. If the whole town is hearing it, he should too, so he can deal with the man.”
    “Farthingstone has shown a tenacious interest in my wife’s affairs. However, I expected cynical gossip from him and others.”
    “He has been telling ‘the true story,’ as he calls it. Everyone knows that he went to Lord Chancellor Brougham about her condition and that you were told to wait on Chancery before marrying. Everyone knows that Brougham is angry about the elopement. Everyone knows that she bought your way out of a sponging house with fifteen thousand.”
    “I’m sure that Duclairc is delighted to learn that his marriage is the tattle of every club and drawing room,” Colin said. “You have outdone yourself in tactlessness, McLean.”
    “That is what friends are for.”
    Dante gestured to the tables surrounding them. “If everyone has heard Farthingstone’s claims, this welcome surprises me.”
    “The decent men assume that you conveniently found happiness with a rich woman. The scoundrels are reassured to know that, faced with an incredible opportunity, you grabbed it just as they would have done.”
    “Whatever anyone believes, I want to make it very plain that my wife is not addled.”
    “Of course not. Anyone who knows you has no trouble understanding why a completely sane Miss Monley would marry you. Women are drawn to you like iron to a magnet, and it seems that even angels are not immune. I wish that I knew your secret. The good ones always run away from me.”
    “You would not know what to do with one of the good ones,” Colin said.
    Nor do I
, Dante thought.
    He tried to force his mind away from thoughts about the good woman to whom he found himself abruptly and permanently tied. She had been all grace and sweetness the last week while she rearranged her home to accommodate his intrusion.
    She had turned the study over to him. She had given up the large bedchamber adjoining hers that she had used as a private sitting room, and had refurnished it for the new master of the house. Masculine dark furniture and textures now filled that space. During the days workmen still repainted its wood.
    One door had not been refinished. The narrow white door that stood between Fleur’s dressing room and his.
    She did not lock it. He had discovered that two nights ago, after a quiet evening of reading together in the library. They had barely spoken through those hours, but it had been surprisingly pleasant all the same. Maybe that was because looking at those pages permitted them to be together without looking at each other.
    Embarrassment still glimmered in her expression whenever their eyes met. He suspected that everything he tried to hide behind a forced good humor was reflected in his own. Reading those books had let them drop their guard a little. Something of the old, relaxed friendship had returned in the companionable silence.
    However, a dropped guard could be dangerous. It had stripped him of the indifference that his frustration and anger had constructed that night in Durham after he left her