Page 83 of The Lyon Returns
“No? Whatdidhe do Gwen?”
“He sent me to stay with my father for a few days. When I returned, I found he’d purchased several new gowns for me, with more on the way. Mr.—my husband’s friend—announced his intention to leave soon after my return.”
For a week following Landry’s departure, Reggie had seemed angry with her for the first time she could remember, though when she asked, he denied it.
“Your husband did nothing,” Gideon gritted out. “I swear to you, if he weren’t already dead, I’d…” He made an obvious effort to rein in his temper though his hands fisted at his sides, his knuckles going white. “Never mind.”
The clatter of the wheels over the road seemed deafening to Gwen in the lengthening silence. Gideon stared straight ahead at the vacant bench, two of his long, tanned fingers tapping a staccato on his thigh asif energy he could not contain poured through him.
“Something’s not adding up,” he finally said.
“I beg your pardon?” She drew the words out slowly.
“Why did you marry him, Gwen?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m through entertaining you with the sordid details of my past, especially as you have decided not to believe me.”
Slowly, he turned to face her. “What? I never said that.”
“You said my story didn’t add up.”
“I believe you, Gwen. Your story makes perfect, infuriating, sense—aside from one glaring improbability.”
“Which is?” she demanded.
“Why, in the name of all that’s holy, couldn’t the perfect Reggie perceive your inherent, incontrovertible, bloody-maddeningdesirability?”
Braced for an attack on her integrity, his description of her—maddeningly desirable—flummoxed and delighted her. But she could see that was not his intent. Nevertheless, a smile tugged at her mouth. She fought it for all she was worth.
“I ask you again. Why did you marry him? Surely you knew by the time you planned to wed he was a cold fish, not to mention a mollycoddle.”
She wrestled with whether to defend her late husband, or explain, finally deciding on neither. She had told Gideon of Reggie’s lack of attraction for her, and afterward, had shared her ordeal with Mr. Landry. No more confessions. Turnabout was fair play.
“What of your wife, sir?”
He blinked in evident surprise. “What of her?”
“How did you meet?”
“Meet?”
She wondered if he was being deliberately obtuse. Striving for patience, she clarified. “I understand you married shortly after settlingin London, fresh from your return from the east and the founding of your shipping company, but I got the impression from Lady Ashwood you already knew each other.”
His expression grew distinctly wary. “Lady Ashwood? What, exactly, did she say?”
She sent him a chiding look. For a man with no hesitation digging into her personal affairs, he showed remarkable reticence in sharing details of his own. “I can’t recall,” she lied. She would hardly repeat the woman’s inane claim he should have known better than to aim so high.
His narrowed eyes said he was not convinced she spoke the truth. “She was a favorite of the duchess and a frequent guest at Averly Abbey from the time Grayson and I were both young bucks.”
“I see. You aspired to marry her from the beginning, then?”
He grasped one of the velvet drapes between two fingers and snapped it aside.
Bright sunlight lit up the cab.
Gideon glanced pointedly out the small-paned window. A muscle ticked in his jaw as if her question vexed him. “No. I had no thought of marrying her.”
“What changed your mind?”
