After another minute or so, however, he was beginning to think that it would be the only word for the next three days as well. Richard did not quite understand how silence could have varying degrees of awkwardness, but this four-person silence was infinitely more awful than the one he’d endured with just his sisters for company. A frigid mantle had come over the room, not of temperature but of mood, and every clink of fork against dish was like the crack of ice.
And then suddenly—thankfully—Marie-Claire spoke. It occurred to Richard that perhaps she was the only one who could. She was the only one who wasn’t playing a role in this macabre farce that had become his life.
“It is good to see you downstairs,” she said to Iris.
“It is good to be down,” Iris said with barely a glance in Marie-Claire’s direction. “I am feeling much better.”
Marie-Claire blinked. “Were you ill?”
Iris took a sip of her tea. “In a manner of speaking.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Richard saw Fleur’s head snap around.
“And are you well now?” he asked, staring at Iris until she was forced to meet his gaze.
“Quite.” She turned her attention back to her toast, then set it down with an oddly deliberate motion. “If you will all forgive me,” she said, rising to her feet.
Richard stood immediately, and this time so too did his sisters.
“You haven’t eaten a thing,” Marie-Claire said.
“I’m afraid my stomach is somewhat unsettled,” Iris replied in a voice that Richard found far too composed. She placed her napkin on the table next to her plate. “It is my understanding that it is a malady common to women in my condition.”
Fleur gasped.
“Shall you wish me joy?” Iris said tonelessly.
Richard realized he couldn’t. He’d got what he wanted—no, not what he wanted, it had never been what he wanted. But he’d got what he asked for. Iris might not be smiling about it, but for all intents and purposes she had just announced her pregnancy. To three people who knew full well it was a lie, but still, she’d signaled that she would do what Richard had demanded of her. He’d won.
But he could not wish her joy.
“Excuse me,” Iris said, exiting the room.
He stood frozen. And then—
“Wait!”
He somehow came to his senses, or at least as much sense as was needed to force his legs into motion. He strode from the room, well aware that his two sisters were gaping at him like landed fish. He called out Iris’s name, but she was nowhere to be seen. His wife was fast, Richard thought wryly. Either that, or she was hiding from him.
“Darling?” he called out, past caring if the entire household could hear him. “Where are you?”
He peered in the drawing room, then the library. Bloody hell. He supposed she had the right to make this difficult for him, but it was beyond time they talked.
“Iris!” he called again. “I really need to speak with you!”
He stood in the center of the hall, frustrated beyond measure. Frustrated, and then extremely embarrassed. William, the younger of the two footmen, was standing in a doorway, watching him.
Richard scowled, refusing to acknowledge the moment.
But then William started to twitch.
Richard could not help but stare.
William’s head began to jerk to the right.
“Are you quite all right?” Richard could no longer avoid asking.
“M’lady,” William said in a loud whisper. “She went into the drawing room.”
“She’s not there now.”
William blinked. He took a few steps and poked his head into the room in question. “The tunnel,” he said, turning back to face Richard.
“The . . .” Richard frowned, peering over William’s shoulder. “You think she went into one of the tunnels?”
“I don’t think she went out the window,” William retorted. He cleared his throat. “Sir.”
Richard stepped into the drawing room, his eyes lighting on the comfortable blue sofa. It had become one of Iris’s favorite spots to read, not that she’d ventured outside her bedchamber in the past few days. At the far wall was the cleverly camouflaged panel that hid the entrance to the most well used of Maycliffe’s secret tunnels. “You’re sure she entered the drawing room,” he said to William.
The footman gave a nod.
“Then in the tunnel she must be.” Richard shrugged, crossing the room in three long strides. “I thank you, William,” he said, his fingers easily working the hidden latch.