Page 62 of Duke of Diamonds
But of course, he wasn’t finished.
“Mrs Burton is more than capable of seeing you thro?—”
“Iknow,” Fiona said sharply, the words leaping from her lips before she could contain them. Her hand tightened around her fork, the silver pressing hard into her palm.
There was a pause. She glanced up and saw his brows lift by a fraction—barely enough to be called a reaction, yet unmistakably a response.
Her cheeks burned. She placed the fork down gently, carefully.Do not make a scene. Not again.
“What I meant to say is...” She smoothed her napkin with deliberate attention, then lifted her eyes to his. “May we take our meal without further discussion of duties?”
“Why, but the very meal we share now is an act of responsibility, Fiona.”
Her fingers curled into her lap, nails pressing against silk.The man cannot possibly be serious.
“Our very marriage is a manifestation of those responsibilities. We knew this from the start. Is that not why we agreed to this union in the first place?”
Fiona’s fork clattered slightly against the porcelain as she picked it up, then set it down again. “What I do not recall usagreeingto,” she said, eyes fixed on the salt cellar, “is disrupting the peace during mealtimes.”
“A mere reminder is not a disruption of peace, Fiona.”
She nearly groaned aloud. Instead, she pressed her thumb to the crease between her brows, willing the ache there to fade. Hermouth opened, then closed again. She picked up her glass of wine and took a long, steady sip.
“I refuse to argue with you just now,” she muttered, not looking at him.
She heard the sound of his knife meeting the plate’s edge, deliberate and precise.
“Wise choice, darling.”
Her hand jerked, and she nearly spilled her wine.Darling?Her ears burned. Her skin prickled. She was not certain if she wanted to throw the glass or climb under the table.
They resumed eating, each lost in their own thoughts, the cutlery between them now less instrument and more shield.
Fiona reached for the bread and found their hands brushing at the dish. She pulled back at once. He did not.
“Do you dislike Mrs Burton?” he asked after a pause.
Fiona dabbed the corner of her mouth with her napkin, folding it and unfolding it. “I do not know her well enough to say.”
“She has run the household efficiently for years.”
“So I gathered,” she replied, and then, more coolly than intended, added, “You certainly trust her more than me.”
His jaw moved slightly, the only hint he had registered the remark. “That is not fair.”
“Neither is being handed off like a poorly wrapped parcel and expected to smile at the receiving end,” she said, laying down her fork. “I may have agreed to this marriage, but I was not prepared to feel quite so... superfluous.”
There. She had said it.
The silence stretched again.
He leaned back in his chair, gaze not on her but on the flickering candle between them. “You are not superfluous.”
She blinked. That he responded at all surprised her.
He looked at her then. “I do not know how to make room for someone. That is not an excuse. Only an admission.”
He confesses awkwardness like other men confess affairs.
