Page 37 of Cora
“I—”
Cora turned away. She didn’t know how to explain the situation with Gideon. Luckily, she was spared the difficulty of trying to articulate her evolving feelings about her marriage.
“You don’t need to explain anything to me, Cor. I’m surprised to hear you’re getting on, is all. Happy for you. But I don’t know what to make of the piano. Do you think he bought it to taunt you about what happened at the Pindell’s?”
“I don’t know what he meant by it.” Strangely, she was starting to believe Gideon’s explanation.
“Have you played?”
“No.”
“Are you going to?”
She could only shrug. She did miss the smooth glide of keys beneath her fingers and the vibrations deep within the instrument. Not playing piano for all these years felt like silencing her own voice. She had done it out of hurt and stubbornness, but she wanted to move past that.
Heat rushed through her again as she recalled what had happened on the billiards table. Not from embarrassment, although that was part of it. From the things he’d said as he touched her.
Say you forgive me, and I’ll give you the stars.
She wanted the stars Gideon had dangled. She wanted sparks and fireworks, all the explosions his sinful lips had promised. Yet she wasn’t sure she could tamp down her pride long enough to truly forgive him for publicly humiliating her, and she knew in her bones that he would accept nothing less than total capitulation. That was his nature. Wolfish.
The question remained: was she part of his pack, or was she the prey he hunted?
“You were an excellent player, Cora. Would it be so bad to try it again?” Eryx said quietly.
“I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “I am more interested in learning how to play billiards well enough to defeat my husband.”
“Can’t help you there, Cor.” He returned to his desk with a sigh. “Ask Lysander. He might have time to show you the basics.”
* * *
Lysander laughed in her face.
“No, I won’t teach you, Cora. Ladies don’t play billiards. What would Mrs. Wentworth think?”
“I have been trying not to consider what Martha might think, actually.” It did not take much imagination to know that her mother-in-law would not approve—which only made her more determined to learn. Once the Season was in full swing, she wouldn’t have as much opportunity to practice.
Lysander didn’t ask what her husband would think. Nor did he inquire about the state of her marriage. It wasn’t that he didn’t care. He considered other people’s marriages none of his business. A defense mechanism, she knew, from the way his parents had used him as collateral in a proxy war against one another.
Cora couldn’t ask Honey for help. Her friend would barely know what billiards was, and asking her would only invite questions that would inevitably make their way into the ears of polite Society, thus undermining Gideon and Martha’s efforts to prove she was in fact a lady worthy of respect and admiration.
That left only underhanded means to attain her objective—a return to the House of Virtue. Ladies did not resort to underhanded means, but desperate times, desperate measures and such. Under the pretext of visiting Honey, she took a detour to Number 9 Dove Street.
“Visiting hours aren’t until the afternoon,” Starke informed her bluntly.
“I am not here to pretend I’m reforming whores,” Cora said just as bluntly. “I want to see Tulip. I have personal matters to discuss with her.”
“Wait here.”
Cora examined the elegant foyer with its marble and gold trim, silk wallpaper, and tasteful art.
“Tulip will see you,” Starke intoned. This time, she was permitted past the tasteful foyer and beyond the front parlor. He led her down a hallway that caused Cora to gape at the statues in niches. Naked. Every last one of them. The male form in all its splendor.
What would Gideon look like naked?
After a month of marriage, she still didn’t know. Her throat closed as she was swamped with an unfamiliar feeling: longing.
For the man who had ruined her life, then caged her in an unconsummated marriage. If he’d waited years to claim her as he said, then why was he ignoring her during what was supposedly their honeymoon?
