The burglary alone wasn’t making him tetchy. “Use my house in Richmond if you’d rather not stay at your current address,” he said.
She righted the nearest figurine on the sideboard with deliberate care. “You looked grim when I walked in and hadn’t yet opened my mouth. I’ve a feeling your mood has not all to do with the ransacking.”
She was too perceptive. It happened when one’s senses had been honed to cutlass precision on the grindstones of the gutter; survival on the street depended on quickly and correctly classing the mad, the bad, the drunkards, and the harmless, even from afar. He remembered there had been a time when Aoife and he had been friends—well, urchins, sharing the same dreary fate during the day and warmth on a pallet at night.
“Aoife.”
“Yes?”
“You’re a woman.”
Her brows rose. “I’m so excited to learn where you’re taking this.”
He gave a shake, wondering what had possessed him. “Forget I asked.”
“Oh, come now.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Trouble with the lady wife?”
“No.” Said too fast.
She cocked her head, a sarcastic glint in her eyes.
“Aye,” he muttered.
“Well.” Delight filled her voice. “I’m all ears.”
The words appeared to be stuck at the back of his throat like a fishbone, going neither forward nor back down. “She’s not … keen,” he finally said.
“Keen?”
“Keen on …” Astonishingly, getting punched in the sternum felt less excruciating than saying such things out loud. “Never mind.”
“Keen … ooh. I see.” She cackled, all witchlike.
Hot irritation surged through him.
“Keen,” Aoife repeated, and crossed her arms over her chest. “You sound like a doctor for female ailments, trying to make it sound all flowery and nice. Keen,” she crooned, “why not say fucking? Normally, you would’ve. Interesting.”
He realized he was grinding his molars. “What of it?”
“It’s interesting, that’s all. I thought the marriage business was just a means to an end—”
“It is, but the ends aren’t being achieved.”
Aoife pursed her lips. “Perhaps she’s scared of you.”
Scared? She had been chatty enough all day yesterday. She had come to his bedroom. But yes, then she had hared off again rather than finish what they had started …
“I told her she needn’t be scared,” he said.
“I swoon,” Aoife replied dryly. “Well, I never even seen her. How can I know her reasons? I do know you’ve known how to do your duties since you were a lad, and there was happy sighs when the girls talked, not complaints—”
“She’s different,” he cut her off.
“Different?” Aoife said, sounding hostile now. “Like how? She has gills? Wings? A mermaid’s tail?”
Close enough. She had never lifted a finger for any of the meals she ate. She didn’t brush her own hair. She was considerably more intelligent than experienced, which made her opining pretentious, and she made him feel brutish just by standing next to him so utterly self-possessed in her ignorance and ruffled gowns. He had known who he was and what he wanted for over a decade, which allowed him to be in charge just as he liked it, and now he was ambushed by second guesses and thoughts he hadn’t expected himself capable of thinking. That bothered him more than her reluctance.
“What you mean is that she’s a lady,” Aoife said derisively. “But I’ve heard you’ve knocked knees with those before.”
“They sought me out for so-called depravity.”
“Perhaps that would be to her liking, too.”
Ah yes, he thought, because new brides crave to be bent over a divan and get their arses paddled.
“I’ve known a few mistresses in my time,” Aoife said, “and what I heard again and again is that gentlemen rut like beasts because they think they can’t inflict it on the wives. Meanwhile, perhaps it’s their wives knocking on your door?”
“How is this supposed to help?” he asked, incredulous.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’m just always tickled when man’s division of women into frigid wives and lusty whores slaps them right back in the face.”
He growled. “Your advice is right shite.”
“All right,” she said, sensing that she was pushing him too far.