Jamming her eyes shut, she willed herself not to cry. She was much better hiding in this numbness. Given her way, she’d lie here forever.
Charis listened to him move about the room. Water splashed into a dish. Perhaps he meant to wash. Perhaps he was desperate to rid himself of every trace of her disgusting person.
She recognized she tortured herself and scotched the thought before it went any further. Instead, she sought that cold empty space in her heart where nothing could hurt her.
The rug muffled his footsteps as he moved closer. She couldn’t help tensing at his approach. He stopped by the bed. Unthinkingly, she flinched.
Although he wouldn’t touch her. He’d never touch her again, now she was his wife in fact as well as law.
He didn’t say anything. There was a soft clink on the bedside cabinet. He shifted away, his footsteps deliberate but somehow defeated.
There was a click as he opened the door, then another as he closed it behind him.
She opened her eyes. The blazing fire still lit the room. The whole episode had probably taken less than half an hour.
Half an hour for her world to change.
She turned her head to see a blue-and-white china washbowl on the nightstand and a pile of towels. He’d seen to her comfort, then he’d left her in peace.
The tears she’d fought since he’d come to her bed overflowed.
Eventually Charis roused to go looking
for her husband.
It wasn’t in her nature to avoid difficulties. Lying in the rumpled bed, surrounded by the unfamiliar smell of sex, she had time to gather her courage.
And time to start worrying about Gideon.
As shock and discomfort receded, she began to think what price that joyless coupling had exacted from him. She needed to see him, to reassure herself he was all right. She needed to see him because the moment when she’d wished him to Hades had been brief indeed. Now only his nearness could soothe her aching sadness.
She rolled out of bed, the abrupt movement setting up a host of unfamiliar twinges. Reminder, should she need it, that nothing would ever be the same after what had just happened.
Wrapping a blanket around her trembling shoulders, she trudged across the floor. She pushed the door open and stepped through. The parlor was quiet and dark except for the low glow of the fire.
Had he gone out? After what they’d done, sleep would elude him. She ventured closer to the Stygian corner where he’d sat last night. Then she realized he sprawled in a massive wooden armchair in front of the hearth.
“Gideon?” She hitched the blanket up and stepped around the chair’s looming bulk to stand before him.
He didn’t look at her. Instead, he stared at the fire. Something told her he’d stared into the fire for a long time. His gloved hand curled around a half-filled glass that dangled on the verge of spilling. Brandy, she guessed.
“Go back to bed, Charis.”
The boneless curve of his long, lean body echoed the despair in his voice. His legs stretched toward the grate, and his shirt hung loose as it had in the bedroom. A frisson ran through her as she looked at his bare chest, gold in the flickering light.
A shiver, astonishingly, not of revulsion.
Charis beat back the cowardly urge to obey him and flee. Instead, she fixed an unwavering gaze upon him. “We need to talk.”
His face tightened. With a savagery that made her wince, he lifted the glass and pitched it into the fire. There was the sharp tinkle of shattering glass and a brief flare as the brandy caught.
“Christ, no.”
The eyes he focused on her glittered with anguish and a loathing that made her cringe.
“Do you hate me now, Gideon?” She didn’t recognize the shaking voice as hers. She’d tried so hard to make the act easy for him, but to her shame, she hadn’t succeeded in masking her discomfort.
His face contorted, and she stared aghast into naked torment. Only for a moment. He swiftly pulled the shutters over the turbulent depths.