His expression hardened. “All right.” He flicked his hand toward the arrangement of red velvet settees, the blue ceiling with the chandelier, the elaborately carved wooden trellis partitioning the car into a dining area and a drawing room. “This is my—our—private car. As is the next one. Yell or throw things if you must. Or you could order some tea and accept the situation.”
Yell and throw things? She was too well-bred for such tantrums, and after last evening’s revelations, certainly too jaded. She took a deep breath and lowered herself back onto her seat. “You are a horrid, loathsome man,” she said quietly.
“And you are my responsibility,” he replied unmoved, “So don’t expect me to idly stand by while you try to get yersel’ killed, robbed, or raped.”
Her bland smile did not mask her surging fury. “France,” she said, “was a dream of mine. How perfectly safe the world would be for women to follow their dreams if it were not for men interfering at every turn, wouldn’t it?”
“And as long as it’s the way it is, I’ll keep you from traipsing across the continent on your own.”
She bit back a screech. “I demand an annulment.”
He tensed and jerked his gaze to the window instead of gracing her with a reply.
The train lurched into motion. She stared at his cold profile while her hands were curling into fists to the labored clanking of the wheels. A bruise was smudged across her husband’s jaw, making him look terribly common. This man had squashed her one bid at rebellion without a second thought. Because he could. Not a hint of sweat on his brow; it had cost him nothing to bodily drag her from her path. Fire seemed to move through her veins, swelling hotter and higher until a whole blaze was roaring through her and she had never known such incandescent rage.
“Fine,” she said. “I shall go to Scotland with you. But I shall be the stone in your shoe.”
Lucian continued to look out the window.
“The thorn in your side.”
Still he ignored her, so she leaned closer. “The poison in your soup.”
This, at last, caused a reaction—he faced her. “Careful, beloved,” he drawled. “You’ll find yourself sharing every meal with my loathsome person and take the first bite of all my dishes.”
“Beloved,” she said, astonished. “As if you know what love is. As if I could love you—as if anyone could. You are a most wretched soul, one who must resort to scouring the jail to find staff, one who must resort to betrayal to take a respectable wife; you are an upstart and I became a social failure the day I wed you. No, what I would love is to see you brought to justice, and the least I can do is promise that I shall never, ever love you.”
He was deadly still by the time she’d finished. There was only the sound of her panting, and she had a wretchedly sick feeling in her stomach.
“Are you done, then?” Lucian said. His eyes looked dead, too.
“Yes,” she whispered. In her lap, her hands were shaking. The words had shot out in such harsh, clear, rapid succession, surprising her. They must have been there all along, forming a neat queue while waiting for a moment stripped of all civility to burst into the light. This was not like her.
Lucian came to his feet. His shoulders were still tense enough to snap when he disappeared through the partition to the next car. She sat nervously watching the door, the fierce rush of energy abating only slowly. Another husband might have raised his voice or slapped her. She had risked it; she had wished to see him wounded with the fire of a thousand suns, for hurting him equal to her own hurt seemed the only way to make him see. Her attack had failed to inflict even a scratch. He expected no love; of course he didn’t.
She took off her glove. The wedding ring had a dull sheen, pretending to be inanimate metal, but she could feel its aliveness, its derision. The finger it encircled felt numb. She gripped the ring and pulled. It didn’t budge; her fingers had swelled from carrying the bag and the heat of her agitation. She tugged violently, only to hurt her knuckle. The ring remained in place, and it felt as though she were being choked around her neck. This should have been a symbol of love. Instead, it was her scarlet letter.
Outside the window, the blackened brick walls of slum houses were sliding past, leaning against each other like rotten teeth, like tombstones. In a barren backyard, a woman was beating carpets on a line while children in rags chased a ball through the dirt. What misery, Hattie thought, what misery. Beneath her feet, the tracks kept slipping away and putting miles between her and life in London, and perhaps in one last bid for relevance, vivid memories returned: Zachary, ever protective … her mother, meddling with the minutiae of her life … her father, allowing her to go up to Oxford because she was useless at the family business. Chaperones and officers following her every step. Catriona accommodating her foolishness, Lucie abandoning her holidays … Annabelle going to the jail for her … Her skin itched as if it were too tight. Protection to the point of asphyxiation. She had once thought this a proof of love, but it was almost certainly a consequence of her being deemed lovely, foolish, and possibly weak. And she was sick of it. She wasn’t a mindless young girl. She wasn’t a breakable bauble. Now she knew why girls were not allowed to feel anger—there was a reckless hope in it, and power. She would not loathe the compliant woman she had been this morning, oh no; she would direct this precious anger outward, and her gaze forward. Les rousses viennent de l’enfer—redheaded women are from hell. Lovely was dead. Enter the witch.