Page 75 of The Pearl (The Godwicks 3)

“I just wanted to shoot a few holes in the bed.”

“Next time, I promise. I’ll see if I can’t get my hands on a grenade launcher.”

Arthur smiled and she felt ready to start up the stairs. They went up together, Arthur first, Regan behind him—his order.

The bannister was polished and gleaming in the light of the brass wall sconces. She kept a housekeeper on the payroll to see that things were kept up, but Regan wouldn’t have cared if she’d found the place covered in dust, ransacked with rats eating through the walls. No matter how well-tended the house, it was always damp, always cold and clammy, like Sir Jack’s hands.

They reached the top of the stairs. Arthur walked a few feet alone into the shadowy hallway. His silhouette was strong, tall and confident. His strength gave her strength. She went to him and he turned to glare at her.

“You said to stick to you like glue,” she reminded him.

“Which door’s the bedroom?”

“End of the hall,” she said.

Before they’d been married, she had hoped she and Sir Jack would have separate bedrooms like an old Victorian couple. In her fantasy, sex would happen once a month, if that, quickly and politely and with as little fuss or muss as possible. If only. Sir Jack had wanted her all the time, even when he couldn’t perform sexually. He’d made her play the part of the devoted wife. Never a partner in his life, merely a luxury accessory.

“I chose this,” she said softly, running her hand along the wall with disgust.

“You didn’t choose this,” Arthur said. “You chose safety and security and got fear and cruelty. It’s called bait-and-switch. Treating you like property was his choice, not yours.”

“My choice to stay. He never made me stop painting, you know. He told me to quit art school, but he never actually said I had to stop painting. It wasn’t as if I didn’t have plenty of free time. That wasn’t him. That was me.”

“You made a mistake,” he said. “You more than paid the price for it.”

“Yes, but—”

Arthur planted a hard, passionate kiss on her mouth, then pulled back and smiled.

“What was that?” she asked.

“That was me protecting you from saying something embarrassing like you deserved to be treated like shite by your husband.”

She met his eyes, glared. “I’d almost forgotten what a brat you are, Brat.”

He grinned wickedly. “That’s why I reminded you.”

They were at the door. Light streamed out from underneath it. No sounds inside. Arthur kissed her again briefly on the lips, then opened the door.

A large rectangular Tiffany lamp stood on the bedside table. It was on, but that seemed to be the only sign anyone had been in here. The bedroom was just as Regan remembered it. Dark wood wainscoting with hunter green wallpaper and a picture rail hung with the portraits of all Sir Jack’s illustrious ancestors trapped inside their dusty frames. And the bed, of course, large and layered with luxurious sheets and a brown and cream counterpane. All very male. All very stuffy and stodgy.

One thing had changed, however.

“What’s this?” Arthur asked as he stared at the painting hanging over the cold and empty stone fireplace. “Modern art? Inthishouse?”

She recognized the painting at once. A painting of Mars, the Roman god of war and Venus, the Roman goddess of love. They lay twined together in a golden net that trapped them in a bed made of clouds.

The side of the bed belonging to Mars was midnight blue, heavy, manly, and the side of the bed Venus lay upon was pale pink and bright and light.

“I was inspired,” Regan said, “by the famous paintingMars and Venusby Angélique Mongez. She was the first Frenchwoman to become a full-fledged history painter. Very groundbreaking considering it was the early nineteenth century and women were only expected to paint family portraits if that. In her version ofMars and Venus, Mars is about to leave Venus to go off to war. He’s got one foot on his war chariot while Venus sits with their son Cupid, trying to lure Mars back to her. His side of the painting looks like a hellscape. Hers looks like a magical spring morning. I loved that, dividing the canvas in half—his and hers. I stole that idea, put my own spin on it.”

In her painting, Mars and Venus were floating in the sky—Mars in the night sky, Venus at dawn.

“You painted this?” Arthur asked. “This is one of yours?”

She nodded. “Mars and Venus In Vulcan’s Net.I must have known… Venus was forced into marrying the ugly old Vulcan and then she—”

Regan couldn’t even say the word “love” and despised herself for her cowardice.

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