She halted ten feet away, crossed her arms beneath her breasts, and looked him in the eye. “I see no reason to wait.”
Gyles took in the seething emotion in her eyes. He glanced down the room. Wallace was easing out of the door. Jaw setting, he looked at Francesca. “Very well.” His tones were clipped, cold. “What is it?”
Unwise words; her eyes flared. But the fact she reined her temper in left him even more uneasy. He’d seen her furious before; this time, she was burning with a cold flame-one to cut, rather than scorch.
“I am not a child.”
She enunciated the words clearly. His eyes on hers, he raised his brows, then let his gaze slide over her lush figure. “I wasn’t aware I had treated you-”
He shut up.
She laughed coldly. “Like an infant incapable of any degree of self-preservation? A lackwit unable to walk through the park without falling and causing herself some hurt? Or was it that you imagined I’d be attacked and ravished under the trees”-she flung out an arm-“there, in your own park?”
She wrapped her arms about her again, as if she was chilled by her own fury. Her eyes locked with his. “You have given orders that have made me a prisoner in this house-this house that is supposedly my home. Why?”
The simple question slipped under his guard and rock
ed him. He’d expected her to rail against his restrictions, not cut straight to his heart and ask why. He let seconds tick by, let his breathing slow, steeled himself before stating, “Because I wish it.”
She didn’t react-didn’t fling her hands to the sky and berate him. She studied him, her gaze steady and direct. Then, slowly, she shook her head. “That, my lord, is not answer enough.”
“It is, however, all the answer you will get.”
Again, she didn’t react as he expected. Her eyes widened; her gaze raced over his face, then she swung on her heel and walked back to her room.
The door closed, softly, behind her.
Gyles stared at the closed door. The coldness inside him deepened, intensified to pain. He’d thought he couldn’t get any colder; he’d been wrong about that, too.
He’d been wrong about so much.
So wrong in thinking that to love was a decision that was his to make. Yes, or no. It hadn’t been like that.
A sound at the main door made him glance that way. With a curt gesture, he waved Wallace away. He needed a few moments to get his armor back in place, to gird himself to suffer the cold. He’d felt fear before, but it had never been like this. Never this deep, this black, this icy. Every time she caused it to rise, it grew more powerful, more profound. He thought he’d vanquished it, or at least come of an age where he could manage it and triumph. The moment in the forest, replayed with greater intensity on the downs, had left him feeling victorious.
A hollow victory. If he was with her when danger threatened, all was well. He still felt the fear, but he wasn’t helpless against it, and he knew it. He’d proved it. He was who he was, in his prime; there were few dangers from which he couldn’t defend her. Protecting her encouraged the barbarian, fed his baser self.
But his true self had no armor against invisible foes, no ability to protect her from them.
Against all conscious direction, his true self had fallen deeply in love with his wife.
Dropping the cravat, he started loosening his cuffs. He’d felt the first chill touch when he’d lifted her mangled hat from Wallace’s salver. He’d tried not to notice, to pay it no heed, as if by doing so he could deny its existence. Then had come the incident of the dressing.
He been helpless to deny his fear. Ever since, it had ruled him.
Knowing that the dressing had not been poisoned made no difference; it changed nothing.
He was irrevocably in love with his wife. His world had come to revolve about her smile, and he could not face even the faintest possibility that she might be taken from him.
Wallace had returned. Gyles heard the quiet sounds of his valet-cum-majordomo hanging his discarded coat in the wardrobe.
The door to Francesca’s room opened. She came in, agitation flowing about her, whipping the skirts of her peignoir. Her hair looked wild, as if she’d run her hands through it.
Gyles flicked a glance at Wallace to see his majordomo sliding once more from the room. Inwardly bracing, he faced Francesca. “What now?”
Her face was pale. He didn’t want to meet her eyes, didn’t want to see the bruising in the green.
“Why are you doing this?”