Season for Scandal (26 page)

“I see. You thought I wouldn’t miss you if you tossed a few Christmassy gewgaws about?”

Her toast fell to the hearth. “You miss me?”

Bending, he picked it up and tossed it into the fire. “You can have this next piece. It’s almost done.”

Jane put a hand on Edmund’s arm. “You miss me?”

It was so difficult to look at her face. Somehow, though this conversation had begun with her off balance, he had ceded her all the power.

And all the toast.

The thought brought a wry smile to his face. In the firelight, her hazel eyes looked gold; her hair, a ruddy flame. “How could I not miss you, Jane?”

She frowned. “That’s not an answer.”

“What would you consider an answer?” Impatience grew in him, the pressures of the day clamping like a vise on his temples. “It’s always a test with you, Jane, and I never know how to pass it. If I say I’m glad to see you, you think I’m lying. If I say that I’m annoyed by the very sight of you, I feel like the worst sort of villain. Maybe they’re both true at once, though. Maybe I don’t know what to make of you, and I never have. But overall, I’d much rather you stay than go. Is that a satisfactory answer for you?”

She studied him with those liquid-gold eyes for a long moment. “The toast is burning.”

Edmund cursed, knocking the smoking piece of bread into the coals.

“The next piece should be for you,” she said. “You haven’t eaten yet.”

“Such wifeliness.”

“You’ve no idea,” she replied. “When the tea comes, I’m going to make your cup.”

“As I take it black, that’s not much of a struggle.”

“Nevertheless.” A servant entered with the tea tray then, and Jane clattered the cups around with great industry before bringing one to Edmund. Tea had slopped over the brim of the cup and filled the saucer.

“Hold it for me,” he said. “I’m going to get this next piece of toast right, or starve trying.”

Again, she seated herself next to him. Her fingers wrapped tightly around the cup; the saucer balanced on her thighs.

Edmund fixed his eyes determinedly on the toasting fork. The bread. The coals. “Why, Jane? Why are you back today?”

“I told you. I had a bad day and wanted to end it by doing something nice. That’s what you do, isn’t it?”

“It’s hardly nice for me to get a glimpse of my wife, then have her run off again. Am I to expect this sort of torment every time you take a whim into your head?”

“It’s torment to see me?”

His vision blurred as his eyes watched the flames dance. “A little, yes. And a little wonderful, too. I already told you that. But you have this habit of not believing anything I say unless it’s horrid.”

“I believe you.”

He almost dropped the toasting fork.

“Oh, let me finish the toast.” She reached for the fork; the movement set the saucer atop her thighs to rocking. Tea dripped onto her gown.

“Damn,” they both said at once, then smiled.

“Here,” Edmund said. “I’ll give you a cup for a fork. We sound like footmen laying a table, don’t we?” He handed her the nearly done toast on its fork and took the teacup from her hand.

He took a sip, realizing as the hot liquid soothed his throat just how thirsty he’d become. In silence they sat, until Jane handed him the finished toast.

He took it, but instead of thanking her, he blurted, “I thought you might be coming back. For good, I mean. Because you left so many of your things here.”

“Like what?” She looked puzzled.

He tilted his head toward the small table on which her Chinese vase sat. “That vase you like so much, for one. Or your horse, stabled out in the mews, eating her head off.”

“You bought that vase. It’s yours. And the horse, too. Besides, I don’t know how to ride.”

He choked on a too-large gulp of tea. “You don’t?”

“I wanted you to teach me, but you never—”

“Never what? Never read your mind? Never knew what you didn’t tell me?”

“I shouldn’t have come.” She made to rise, but he caught her arm.

“No, Jane. We’re going to—what was your phrase?
Discuss it.
You seem to be angry at me about any number of things. I am uncovering new reasons all the time. Like an archaeologist, aren’t I? That sounds like the exotic sort of thing you would enjoy.”

She set down the toasting fork on the marble hearth, then tucked loose strands of hair behind her ears. “You also bought the atlas. You forgot to mention that.”

Edmund was sorely tempted to slosh more tea onto her gown. “It was a
gift.
”

“Just because you buy someone a gift doesn’t mean she wants or needs it.”

“But you did want it.”

Jane made a rude noise.

“That is not a response,” Edmund replied, stung. “Though if you want to look at the matter that way, then I bought
you
as well. Yet you’ve removed yourself from my household readily enough.”

He wondered if she would fly into a rage at this; he almost hoped she would. But she only sighed. “I know. You own me, and I can never forget it.”

Once again, he found himself wrong-footed in this conversation. “No, it’s not so, Jane. There’s payment, and then there are gifts. Everything I’ve bought for you is a gift, and that means it’s yours, and the cost doesn’t matter anymore.”

“It matters to me.” She jabbed at the coals with the delicate tines of the toasting fork. “It’s just another way for me to be in your debt.”

A startled laugh burst from Edmund’s throat. “
You
in
my
debt?”

“Ten thousand pounds’ worth, and that’s before we married and you started buying me other things. That’s also assuming you don’t charge me interest.”

He sprang to his feet, shoving the unwanted teacup onto the mantel and staring down at her. Lord, what terrible pride she had. “You insult me,” he said through gritted teeth, “by turning our lives together into a ledger. I am not keeping account.”

“I didn’t mean to imply that. Only that
I
was keeping account. Otherwise how am I ever to know I’ve squared my debt to you?”

“What on earth are you talking about?” He pressed a hand to his temple. A nice change, to have a headache instead of the gnawing pain in his stomach. “You left this house because you think you’re in debt to me? Are you going to move back when you’ve paid me, then? Because that makes just as much sense. And while you’re here, I
must
know how you intend to work off ten thousand pounds. Because any way I can think of . . .”

“What? Finish your sentence.” Now she had stood, too, and was facing him with set jaw across the footstool on which they’d been seated. “What do you think?”

He pulled in a deep breath. “I think,” he said in a measured tone, “that you are capable of doing anything you set your hand to, even if that means earning ten thousand pounds. But I cannot think of a way you could do that without placing yourself in danger. And that, my dear, is something I would regret very much indeed.”

She seemed to wilt at these words. “Oh. You’re being kind again. I can never fight with you when you’re kind.”

“Then we should never fight at all, because I’m always kind.” He tried not to sound bitter.

“Not like that. Not with—oh, compliments and praise. I mean
really
kind, like . . .” She looked away. “Like I matter to you.”

He knew instinctively that an
“Of course you do”
would seem pat in the way she disliked. So instead he returned a question. “What makes you feel you don’t?”

Her jaw jutted out. “Considering how you reacted when I told you
one tiny thing
on our wedding night—”

“That you loved me?” He gave a harsh laugh. “That’s hardly a small revelation. Surely I can be forgiven for reacting badly.”

When she continued to glare at him, he realized the truth. “I can’t be, can I? You’ve never forgiven me for turning away from you.”

“Have you forgiven me for saying it?”

“Love isn’t something to be forgiven, Jane. It’s to be . . .” He fumbled for the right word, then grimaced. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about love.”

“That was made quite clear to me.” She sank, boneless, onto a chair. “Edmund. I left you because I could tell you would never love me. More than that: because I could tell you didn’t even
want
me to love you. I thought at first it was a problem with me. That you had a disgust of me for some reason.”

He snapped upright. “Nothing of the sort.”

“No,” she agreed. “Now I realize that. The problem is in you, Edmund. You’ve left your heart behind somewhere long ago, but you’ve never gone back to get it. You look for little pieces of it in everyone you meet. You make everyone love you, just a little. But what do you feel in return? Nothing, because you’re always looking for what’s next.”

He felt dull, the blank of a man who has suffered a dreadful beating and knows the pain will crash upon him any second. “My dear Jane. You describe a terrible person.”

“No. Not
your
Jane. I know our marriage license makes me yours in the eyes of the law, but I don’t think you’ve ever seen me as yours. And as for you thinking I described a terrible person—well, maybe that’s why you’ve never laid claim to me.”

He made a strange sound in his throat, and her cheeks went red. “I’m not talking about physically. I mean—I don’t know how to say it. United in some profound way. If real intimacy was no more than the physical act, you’d have been married a long time ago.”

Oh, he felt the blows now; every one of them, bruising his heart, his skin, pummeling him inside and out. Everything she said was a mirror held up to the worst of himself.

No. Not quite the worst. Yet it was bad enough.

He rather thought he ought to sit down.

He made a production of finding a chair; near hers, but not too near. And all the while she kept raining words on him. “I didn’t mean to describe someone terrible, Edmund. Just someone lonely. Like me. Someone who wants love, but doesn’t know how to get it. I didn’t understand that when I left. But now I do. And that’s why I come back to visit. But that’s also why I can never come back to stay.”

At last, she seemed to be out of things to say. She blew a strand of hair out of her face. Crossed and uncrossed her ankles. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

“Why? You’re talking, so I’m listening.”

“Manners,” she muttered. “You carry them too far. I admit, I’ve never been in this situation before, but my guess is when one’s spouse is ranting about the state of one’s marriage, one ought to do more than just—”

“Oh, stop, Jane. You’ll do yourself an injury if you try to finish that sentence.”

Her mouth fell open. She looked at him as though he’d poked her with the toasting fork.

“Don’t look so shocked. You said that sentence to me once before. I thought it was funny. I remembered it.” He tapped an ear with his index finger. “I
listened
, Jane. That doesn’t mean I’m just waiting for you to stop talking. It means I’m letting you finish, to be sure you’ve said everything you want to. It means I want to think about what you’ve said instead of flying into a rage at some misunderstanding. But if it will make you feel more valued, I can interrupt you every once in a while. I can rant at you a little and jump to conclusions and belittle your thoughts. I can speak to you sharply. I aim—I have always aimed—to please.”

He said all this calmly. Summoning words of his own felt like putting ice on the bruises Jane had inflicted.

“But why? Why do you aim to please?” Her brows yanked into a
V
.

“Because I think it’s the right thing to do. Who would not think so?”

“Most people.”

He shrugged this off. “Then I don’t care about how most people behave. I care about what I think is right. And I care about why you left. And I care about you.”

Her gaze skittered away. “But you don’t trust me.”

A flash of red caught his eye; the berries on the last branch of holly. It lay on the floor between their chairs. She must have let it fall when he’d burned the toast. Or when the tea tray arrived. It didn’t matter.

He bent to pick it up, letting the waxy leaves needle his fingertips. “I’d no idea you thought that, Jane. Of
course
I trust you. You’re fearsome, but that only means you make a much better ally than you do a foe.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not sure if you’re complimenting me or insulting me.”

“A compliment, I assure you.” He seated himself again, turning the holly in his hand. “I don’t trust
me
, Jane. That’s the difficulty. And as long as you’ve any regard for me, I can’t bear to tell you anything that might cause you to stop.”

“So you
don’t
trust me. Not enough to decide how I feel about you.”

“Is that all you want from me? I could tell you how to feel. Then I could be like you, laying down the law without knowing of what I speak.”

Again, Jane’s mouth fell open. Edmund felt a sort of barren triumph in having shaken up her impressions of him.
Yes, my dear; the dog has a bark
and
a bite. Did you think he was entirely tame?

“I’ve listened to you, Jane, and I freely admit that you are right about a great many things. I haven’t trusted you as I should. But here’s a question for you: are you glad you married me? Or do you regret it?”

His stomach wrenched; bile rose into his throat, and he pressed his fist against his breastbone, willing it back down.

“Your stomach pain?”

“Don’t worry about it. Just think of the answer. Or—no, maybe there’s no purpose to that. We’re just as married in the eyes of the law whether you love it or hate it. I just wondered.”

The moment had passed, and he relaxed his fist. The holly leaves had been crushed in his fist; small cuts crisscrossed his palm.

“Are
you
glad or sorry?”

He sat up straighter and shook out his hands. “For myself, glad. For you, sorry.”

“For myself,” Jane echoed, “both.”

“Better than I hoped.” He rose to his feet, paced over to look into her Chinese vase, as though it held secrets and answers and all the wisdom of the ages. “It’s not enough, is it?”