Tony’s face tightened ever so slightly. “I would but no one else would dare to.”
“Ah,” Melissande said and gave Tony a look so provocative it would sizzle any male’s toes.
Douglas stared at her.
Ryder said to Alexandra, his voice easy, and oddly gentle, “Won’t you sit down and join us?”
“I shall join you too,” Melissande announced. She eyed her sister with grave perplexity. This was beyond strange, she thought, staring at Ryder, who was looking closely at Alex. Mirrors didn’t lie. Perhaps poor Ryder was excessively myopic as she’d first thought. She turned back to her husband, saw that mocking gleam in his dark eyes, frowned, then turned to Douglas. Her soul found instant balm. His heart was in his eyes and both looked wonderfully bruised to her.
She gave him a sweet smile and nodded. “Please forgive me if I caused you discomfort last night.”
Douglas shook his head.
“Come and serve me tea, Mellie,” Tony said.
“I told you I don’t like that horrible name!”
Douglas’s right eye twitched.
“Come, Mellie,” Tony said again.
“It’s a lovely nickname,” Ryder said, eyeing the heart-stopping creature, who looked ready to spit at her husband of two weeks. When she didn’t react, he stoked the fire a bit. “I rather like the feel of ‘Mellie.’ It sounds rather mussed, comfortable, like a pair of old house slippers a man can slip his feet into and point them toward the fire.”
Alexandra laughed. “ ’Tis better than Alex. I would rather sound comfortable than like I was a man.”
“No one would ever make that mistake,” Ryder said.
Both Douglas and Melissande frowned together.
“Your gown is deplorable,” Douglas said to his wife. “It is so out of fashion I doubt it was ever in fashion at all.”
Her chin went up and the broom handle straightened alarmingly up her back. “It is blue, and blue is a very nice color.”
“You look like a schoolgirl.”
“Then perhaps you would like to buy me a new one? Or perhaps a dozen? Is my tone wheedling enough, my lord?”
Douglas realized this wasn’t the time to show his ill-humor. He drew himself in and sought control, a commodity of which he’d been plentifully endowed until but twenty-four hours before. The chit had stripped it off him. He felt raw and exposed.
He picked up a scone and bit into it.
“Did you ride Fanny?” Ryder asked.
“Yes, she is a wonderful mare. However, I am uncertain if His Lordship is convinced that I ride well enough.”
“You did fall,” Melissande said. “That wasn’t well done of you, Alex.”
To Douglas’s surprise, Alexandra said only, her voice quite apologetic, “It was unfortunate but I shall be far more careful in the future.”
Douglas wondered if there would be a future. He had to get out of here and do some serious thinking. Annulment seemed the best answer. It seemed the only logical thing to do. He looked over at Alexandra. She was looking directly at him and he saw such wariness in her eyes that he winced. And there was fear also. Fear of him? Because of what she’d done to him, doubtless. The twit should be afraid of him, curse her.
Douglas rose quickly and nodded to the assembled company. “I have work to do with Danvers. The mail is doubtless here by now.”
He left. As he closed the door behind him, he heard Ryder’s laughter.
The mail, however, didn’t cheer him at all.
It rained in the early afternoon, a light soft drizzle that soon cleared away, leaving a very blue sky and very fresh air. Alexandra found Ryder Sherbrooke in the overrun garden at the west of the house, leaning against an oak tree, staring at nothing in particular, seemingly content to bask under the warm sun that filtered through the branches.