Page 48

And if he put space between them following those diversions, that was for the best, too. It was simpler that way. Safer.

“What are ye doin’ today?” he asked, then cursed himself even more soundly. He sounded like a green lad panting after the local dairymaid.

But there was somethingwrongand it was driving him mad not knowing what it was.

Grace’s surprise was slightly more genuine when she looked at him this time. He wondered when he’d learned to read her so well.

“Oh, this and that,” she said absently. “I thought I’d take a stroll through the gardens, perhaps. Or maybe attend to some needlepoint. I’ve been neglecting it terribly, I’m afraid.”

Neglecting her needlepoint his right arse. His wife had not spent her time since their marriage making samplers and ugly pillowcases. She’d been managing the household like a tiny domestic general.

Something had changed—but he didn’t what, nor precisely when.

It hadn’t been until they’d returned home that he’d been able to see her properly. He’d glanced over as he’d taken her cloak, thinking to test her anger, and passively wondering if he could tease her out of her snit with his fingers or his tongue.

What he’s seen in her face, however, hadn’t been anger, nor the mulish irritation she so often wore around him.

No, it wasfear. Downrightfear.

At first, he’d felt a bolt of horror, thinking that he’d been too brutish with her, that he’d let himself, fueled by desire, become the thing he’d sworn he would never be. But then he remembered her words on the balcony.

You really aren’t that frightening. I’ve seen far more frightening things, thank you very much. You’ll have to do better if you intend to alarmme.

She wasn’t afraid of him; she’d been very clear on that point.

What, then, had frightened her?

He was furious at himself for wanting to know. But he did want to know. He needed to know.

Grace patted delicately at her mouth, though a glance at her plate told him she’d not eaten more than a few bites of toast. Her cup of tea, too, was barely touched. Surely this could not be normal for her. She was slender, aye, but not emaciated. He’d felt the proof of that beneath his hands last night.

No, Caleb’s instincts insisted. Something was very wrong.

His wife, however, seemed determined to deny any such thing. She shot him an airy smile.

“Excuse me, Your Grace; I’m off. Enjoy your morning.”

She sounded precisely like the brainless English wife that Caleb had thought he’d wanted, the one that would be easy to control, the one who would not question a single one of his orders, who would accept the terms of their arrangement without argument.

He found he hated it.

He drank his own tea in a single, furious swallow. He’d gotten the habit of drinking it fast and hot in the army—one never knew when one’s marching orders would come in, and nobody liked to abandon their cup undrunk, not when the next brew could be days away. Now, though, the burn in his throat matched his mood.

She washis wife, damn it! If something was wrong, he deserved to know.

He shoved away from the breakfast table. He would find out. Shewouldanswer him.

He was preparing to storm up to his wife’s bedchamber, a boundary he’d not yet transgressed, when he spotted his housekeeper bustling along and his tactician’s mind wondered if there was a better way than a frontal assault when it came to getting the information he needed.

Caleb had never been considered as a spy—he was too big, too brusque, too Scottish—but he’d worked with intelligence officers during his military career. He respected their trade.

“Mrs. O’Mailey!” he barked.

The housekeeper, then just a maid, had tended Caleb’s mother at his birth. She was resoundingly unimpressed by any display of temper on his part.

“Yes, Your Grace,” she said placidly.

“What is wrong with my wife?” he demanded. He’d seen the two women with their heads together as they mused over various household projects. He’d left them to it—as long as she didn’t put up more shrines to his wretched ancestors, Grace could festoon the house however she bloody well pleased—but now he wondered if this could be used to his advantage.