He walked toward her, slowly, his eyes never leaving her face. He was very, very angry.
Sabrina pulled her hand up from the folds of her skirt. She was clutching a riding crop tightly in her fingers. “Stay away from me, Phillip, or I’ll hurt you, I swear it.”
“The only thing I’ll stay away from is your damned knee.”
“I mean it. Go away.” She raised the riding crop and shook it at him.
“Try your best, you little witch.” He was on her. She swung it wildly at him, but he took a quick sideways step, and she merely flicked his sleeve. He lunged forward and gripped her arm just above the elbow. As he forced her arm down she tried again to kick him. He turned to his side, letting her strike his thigh.
He gripped her arm more tightly. She felt the numbness, felt the riding crop slip from her fingers. He pulled her close. “I can’t believe you struck me,” he said.
“In your groin or now?”
He looked down at the riding crop. She’d hit him. He looked at her now, saw her face washed of color, saw the bruises beneath her expressive eyes, saw the fear in them. Lightly, he caressed his fingers over her cheek. He said quietly, “What have we come to, Sabrina?”
She shook her head, saying nothing.
“I never meant to hurt you when I took you as my wife. I always meant to honor you, to protect you, yet we’ve come to this. It’s damnable. What will we do now?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “but I can’t bear it, Phillip, I really can’t.”
“You unmanned me.”
“I was very angry. I’m sorry, but I’d do it again. You were with her.”
“I was there for a reason, Sabrina.”
“Yes, I imagine that you were.”
He sighed and let her go. He leaned down and picked up the riding crop. “You knew I’d come back here. You were going to protect yourself with this?”
“I had nothing else. It seems like another lifetime, but I still remember. When we were at the hunting box, when you were taking care of me, you told me you’d show me how to fight. You didn’t. You forgot.”
“Yes, I suppose I did. If I’d taught you, I wonder what damage you would have inflicted on me at Martine’s.”
“Go away, Phillip. I’ve really said everything I wanted to. Please just leave me alone.”
“Yes,” he said finally, “I suppose there really isn’t anything more to say at the moment.” He left her then, walking away from her, lightly hitting the riding crop against his leg.
She turned to stare blindly into the glowing embers in the fireplace. He was right. There wasn’t anything more to say.
Downstairs, Greybar said to Dambler just after the viscount had slammed his way out the front door, “I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s bad.”
“I know,” Dambler said. “I’ve never seen his lordship like this.”
“We’ve both never seen him married.” Greybar shuddered. “What will happen now?”
39
Sabrina slowly laid down the pen. She looked away from the letter she’d spent the past hour writing. She looked out her bedchamber windows. Heavy-bellied clouds, laden with snow, hung low in the early morning sky. She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece, quickly added several more lines to her letter, and turned away to finish packing her portmanteau.
She fastened the straps, dragged the portmanteau to the door, then saw her letter on the writing desk, and returned to read it one last time.
“Dear Phillip,” she read. “I’ve returned to Monmouth Abbey. I’m truly sorry if my abrupt departure causes you embarrassment. I’m also sorry for many other things, Phillip, least among them my outrageous behavior of yesterday. You were perfectly right. I had no right to act the wounded wife and kick you in the groin for having a mistress, although I didn’t care at the time, I was so angry.
“You will perhaps believe me the perfect hypocrite now, but I find that I simply cannot continue as we have. You’ve said that your freedom is important to you, you’ve said it many times, I just never listened. Now I hear you. It’s just that now I realize that I simply can’t be but one of the women to share your life. I want more than that. I’m worth more than that, at least I think I am, hope I am. Perhaps I’m wrong.
“It’s time for me to return where I belong. I no longer have any real fear of Trevor, for as you have said, he values his own survival above all things.