She stepped neatly past James as she spoke, taking quick, tidy steps toward her—his, damn it!—carriage.

“London to Kent isn’t across the country!” James called after her in frustration, unable to remain silent but equally unable to muster a better parting shot than that. “And you didn’t even make it halfway!”

Violet spared him one last, scornful look over her shoulder before climbing into the carriage and disappearing.

“Not your best effort, old chap,” Jeremy said, having appeared at James’s side as he watched Violet walk away. “Bit embarrassing, really.”

“Get in the carriage,” James demanded. “Then take me to London, and never speak of this again.” He paused a moment, considering. “Actually, first, get me a damn drink.”

“That,” said Jeremy, clapping him on the shoulder, “is the most sense you’ve made all day.”

Three

By the time her carriage rolled to a halt in front of their house on Curzon Street late that evening, Violet was so tired that the edge had worn off her anger. The events of the day floated through her mind as she made her way into the house and then up the stairs toward her bedchamber, but she couldn’t focus on any of them. While her conviction that she was in the right had not weakened in the slightest, she found herself so exhausted that she cared little for anything beyond the prospect of a bath, followed shortly by bed.

The next morning, however, Violet awoke feeling considerably more energized. She could tell by the light streaming through the windows that it was not terribly late, and after she had rung for Price and sat down at her dressing table to brush her hair, she found herself wondering whether she would find her husband at the breakfast table.

If he had returned home at all, that was. She assumed he had, but he might have been so irritated after their meeting at the coaching inn that he returned to Audley House.

Not that the man had any cause to be annoyed, Violet fumed. It had been infuriating enough when he’d accepted the stables as a wedding gift from his father without so much as a word to her until several days into their marriage, and worse still when she’d discovered that on days he spent at the stables or holed up in his study going over the figures, he met her at the dinner table in a prickly mood. Previously, however, her frustration had only ever slid into true anger when he tried to insist to her that the work he did at the stables was for her, for them—as though only he was aware of what she truly wanted.

She could not, no matter how many times they squabbled about it, understand why he dedicated such obsessive attention to the running of the stables at Audley House. To be sure, she knew her husband enjoyed a good ride in the park or across his estate as much as the next man, but James was not naturally inclined to spend an afternoon at Tattersalls eyeing and endlessly debating the latest horseflesh. And while he was undoubtedly excellent with figures—and had indeed seen revenues from the stables increase under his stewardship—she could not understand why he refused to hand over some of the responsibility to others, and any debate with him on the subject tended to only provoke her ire.

However, the events of yesterday had proved nothing if not her husband’s unique ability to send her rage spiraling to new heights. She would have admired him for it had she not been so preoccupied by her desire to stab him with a fork in a delicate area. Repeatedly.

Cutlery-related violence, however, could not be enacted without the presence of its victim, and by the time she had dressed and descended to breakfast, James had apparently left. It was only after discreetly inquiring of Price as she was dressing that Violet had learned that he had in fact returned home the night before. She didn’t know why she had expected this morning to be any different than usual. She frequently took breakfast in bed in order to reduce the number of times she and James must meet across a table in a given day, and even when she did come down, he often departed before her for his morning ride in Hyde Park. He liked to ride early, well before the fashionable hour at which the ton descended upon the park in hordes.

Once upon a time, Violet had accompanied him on some of those rides—she could remember vividly the peculiar quality of the light on the trees on those mornings, and the crispness of the air cutting through the warmth of her riding habit. The strength of the horse beneath her, and the strange elation, sense of life, that came from being out and about when much of the world—or, rather, much of their world—still slumbered, recovering from the previous evening’s excesses.

So, too, could Violet recall the precise shade of pink the wind colored her husband’s cheeks, making him look boyish and far younger than he usually did. Of course, she thought with an odd sort of pang, James had been little more than a boy when they had married. Twenty-three. Older than her own tender age of eighteen, to be sure, but only a couple of years removed from Oxford. So young to be married.

And yet, they had been happy.

For the most part.

And now they were . . .

Well, the truth was that Violet wasn’t quite sure what they were. She would not have said they were happy, not by a mile, and yet calling it mere unhappiness seemed an oversimplification. As if the word couldn’t quite encompass the multifaceted complexity of their existence these days. She felt, at times, in a state of suspense, waiting for their marriage to resolve itself one way or another—for them to go back to their old ways or to move on entirely, take up lovers, resign themselves to a future of politesse but never passion.