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“That is very... kind...” Isabella eyed him, sensing a chance to say something scathing, but not having the will power because dammit he was being so nice!

Something had to give.

This could not go on. She was happy that the two could speak openly now and were not constantly at one another’s throats. But she missed the heat and the intensity which that state of living had brought with it. She missed giving herself over to him utterly and completely. And if she had to choose this life right now or that... she would choose that.

Can I not have both? The compatibility and the passion? Duncan does not think so and any efforts I make to force the issue are quickly diffused.

Tonight, she decided, would be the night that she would find out once and for all where their relationship stood. With no other choice left to her, she would start a fight with Duncan and forcehim to become the animal that right now was trapped in a cage, living on water and scraps.

If the animal was not released, if he kept it locked away for whatever reason he was doing this, then this marriage was as good as doomed. It really was that simple.

“Can I ask you a question, Your Grace?” Richard, the Marquess of Devereux asked as he sipped on his glass of brandy.

“Something tells me that you are going to anyway,” Duncan chuckled as he took a leisurely sip of wine. “I am surprised you asked.”

“It’s the wife,” Richard sighed. “She has been at me lately to keep control of my tongue – to think before speaking, as she puts it. Apparently I have a nasty habit of saying what is on my mind without first thinking of the foreseeable consequences.”

“Do not tell me.” Duncan pretended to gasp. “Trouble in paradise? The self-described perfect marriage is on the rocks and the two of you have...” Duncan touched his chest as if struck. “Have had a fight? The horror!”

Richard’s expression was flat. “Nothing as untoward as that, I assure you. More of an animated conversation.”

“Which you lost.”

“There is no winning or losing, Your Grace. I simply agreed that she might have a point and that I would do better to watch my tongue. Or at the very least, be more diplomatic when I breech what may be a sensitive topic.”

Duncan chuckled. “How does it feel?”

“How does what feel?”

“Being wrapped around your wife’s finger? Does it hurt?”

He scoffed. “Better that then the alternative. Tell me, can you and Her Grace stand to be in the same room as one another? The last time we spoke, you were lamenting a lifetime spent in hiding, for better that than having to force conversation with a woman who you never seemed very keen on marrying in the first place.” Richard sucked through his teeth suddenly, looking guilty. “Ah, and there goes that tongue of mine again. Sorry about that.”

Duncan shook his head but laughed at his friend’s summation. “Now that you ask, my marriage could not be better. Thank you very much.”

“Really?” Richard did not sound at all like he believed it.

“Really.” Duncan looked past Richard, attempting to catch sight of his wife among the crowd, but he could not see her. “It has taken some work but the two of us are in a good place.” Duncan resisted the urge to grimace, for he was not being entirelytruthful. Not even close. “You might even be surprised to hear that we have not fought in days.”

Richard snorted. “A true measure of success.”

Duncan shrugged. “We are feeling one another out. And where we may never reach the same high standards that your own marriage has set...” Duncan rested a hand on Richard’s shoulder. “At least I do not have to ask my wife for permission to speak.”

“That is not – I do not have to ask – I was simply saying --”

“You mean your wife was saying,” Duncan cut him off with a proud smirk. “You were simply repeating.”

Duncan took pleasure in the angered glower that his friend fixed him in – as if Duncan had won some great battle. As if this little sparring of words was proof that Duncan’s marriage was on the ascendancy and Richard’s was flailing. Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth.

Again, Duncan searched the room for sight of his wife, hoping to catch her because if nothing else, she was breathtaking to look at. He had bought her a new dress, canary yellow in color, modest by her standards but still cut in a way so show off her ample curves which Duncan had grown to relish.

Alas, she was nowhere to be seen. Not that this worried Duncan as the ball room was packed with dozens of bodies; colorfullydressed ladies, smartly dressed lords, waiters moving between them with trays laden down by nibbles and drinks to share.

What did worry Duncan, more than he was willing to let Richard know, was how the happiness which he spoke about so wondrously, was utterly and hopelessly false. Or at the very least, exaggerated.

It had started the other night, when he had opened up to Isabella and told her of Andrea. It was a story that he rarely thought about, for good reason, as the outcome had very nearly destroyed him and was without a doubt one of the most consequential moments of his life.

He spent the rest of the night contemplating that relationship, one which was startingly similar to his and Isabella’s. It had been a relationship based purely on sex, which Duncan had gotten carried away with, giving himself over to the intoxication completely and utterly and hopelessly until it ripped his heart out and splayed it on the floor.