She sucked in a choked breath and took the ultimate risk. “Jonas, I love you.”
He whitened, making his scars stand out like beacons. She felt him withdraw beyond reach, even though he didn’t shift a step. “Until something new claims your loyalty, you probably do.”
Dear God, she’d thought he was kind. She was wrong. Shaking, she grabbed the back of the chair he’d offered her. Her knees felt as substantial as jelly. “That’s unjust.”
“Perhaps.”
“Don’t you want what we had at Castle Craven?” Her voice cracked. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t cry.
That muscle flickered in his cheek, indicating strong emotion under even stronger control, but the eyes he settled on her were ice cold. Gray ice. The fissure through which she’d briefly glimpsed his agony had knitted together. He returned to acting the inscrutable monolith. Or a glacier grinding its way down a mountain, unstoppable, destructive, frozen.
“What we had there was a lie.”
“No, it wasn’t.” The ruby ring weighted her hand.
His smile made her shiver. Her grip on the chair tightened until her knuckles shone white. “It doesn’t matter whether it was or it wasn’t, my darling.”
No soft Italian sweetness for his wife. What she’d give to hear a bella or a tesoro. He went on, his voice implacable. “I can’t spend the rest of my life waiting for you to betray me again. You’ve done it twice. Twice you’ve damn near destroyed me. I’m not reckless enough to put myself through that again.”
“Jonas, don’t…”
Despite her determination to stay strong, tears stung her eyes. She’d hurt him so badly and he didn’t deserve it. Even if she counted his less than angelic plans when they’d first met, he didn’t deserve an ounce of the pain she’d caused him. She felt sick with despair and remorse.
Without looking at her, he headed toward the door. “I wish you a happy wedding day, Lady Hillbrook.”
He bowed with a chill that made her flinch and stalked from the room.
Jonas strode into the gaudy, gilded bedroom in Castle Craven, the room that had witnessed those glorious nights in Sidonie’s arms. Immediately after abandoning his wife to sole possession of Merrick House, he’d left London. He’d ridden hell for leather to get here, far enough from any temptation to recall this was his wedding night and if he sodding well wanted to fuck his bride, he had every right to do so.
Mirrors reflected him over and over. Tall, ugly as sin, dressed in black riding coat and boots. He looked as Satanic as a man could this side of hell. If she saw him now, would his wife claim she loved him?
The nearest mirror beckoned him closer. He was filthy and dog tired. His eyes were dull as tarnished tin. At the best of times, he wasn’t a pretty picture. Now he’d scare the horses. He looked as though someone had done him a deathly wrong. He looked as though his best friend in the world had died. He looked like he had no interest in life and no hope for his future.
He looked a bloody disaster.
“Damn, damn, damn,” he whispered, because if he spoke too loudly, his control would snap. Even here, observed only by the battery of looking glasses, he couldn’t allow himself to break down.
Without thinking, he reached out with both hands and wrenched the gold-framed mirror from the wall. It took more effort than expected, but eventually he held the large glass between his hands. The mirror had cracked in the removal. Broken glass distorted his scars but couldn’t make him any more repulsive. If some angel of doom swooped down the chimney at this instant and accosted him with retribution for his sins, he’d welcome annihilation.
In the reflection, he observed his mouth thin, then a flash of what looked like madness in his eyes. As if he watched someone else complete the action, he hoisted the mirror and smashed it hard against the wall.
The crash of shattering glass filled him with satisfaction. His lips curved in a rictus smile as he turned to the next mirror, then the next.
After an hour of ear-shattering mayhem, the only mirror remaining in the room was the one above the bed. Out of reach, bugger it, although he’d struggled hard enough to haul it down. Deadly shards covered the floor. In the corner, the remains of exquisite gilt frames piled one above another like firewood. The plaster walls were bare and marked where he’d flung the mirrors against them.
Without moving from the center of the room, Jonas surveyed the devastation. How he wished he could trample his heart to bloody smithereens amongst the debris.
But his heart, damn it to hell, kept beating.
Chapter Thirty
Storms split the heavens the night Sidonie Merrick arrived at Castle Craven, determined to seize her destiny with both hands.
“Oh, it be ’ee,” Mrs. Bevan said without surprise when she eventually opened the door.
“Good evening, Mrs. Bevan.” Sidonie removed her new cloak and bonnet and passed them to the woman. Nerves jumped like hungry frogs after dragonflies, but she kept her voice steady. Thank goodness her stomach had remained mostly under control for the way from London. Physically she was as well as she’d been for months. “I’ve sent my coachman to the stables. Can you see he finds a bed?”
“Aye.” Mrs. Bevan stumped ahead into the hall. “ ’Ee’ll be wanting maister.”