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She was only two steps away from the table when the boldness to ask the question she was most desperate to ask hit her.

“Should I expect you to join me tonight?”

She could tell she had shocked him from the way his body stiffened, but she didn’t know if it was a good or a bad thing. It wasn’t proper for a woman to speak so brazenly, and she hoped she hadn’t somehow painted a terrible picture of herself.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have?—”

His sudden nearness silenced the words coming out of her mouth. His entire body was tense, and she noticed his hands curling into fists at his sides.

“Percival, I?—”

He raised a hand, silencing her.

“Do not tempt me, wife,” he whispered, his voice devoid of any warmth.

As if his words weren’t confounding enough, he stormed out of the dining room as if the devil was hot on his heels.

Louisa let out a long breath she didn’t realize she had been holding and looked at the door he had just gone through, wondering what she could have possibly done wrong.

Chapter Twelve

Louisa could not sleep. For some reason, her mind seemed hell-bent on punishing her with the embarrassing encounter she had with her husband earlier.

The blame for that encounter lay solely at her feet, as she had allowed the brief moments of camaraderie she had shared with him to delude her into letting her guard down enough that she had taken the risk of asking him to visit her bedchamber.

She had been rewarded for her courage by the sight of his warm smile fading into his usual icy demeanor, as if she had asked him to kill a person or dance naked in the streets.

It was becoming worrisome how much he avoided the marriage bed even though they had agreed on it earlier. She had thought, at least, from the way he had kissed her at their wedding that he had changed his mind on the matter.

From the discussions she had overheard over the years, she understood that men, compared to women, looked forward to their wedding nights so keenly that it was considered the highlight of matrimony.

That fact seemed not to be true for her husband, who avoided her like the plague, forcing her to take the initiative in reminding him that their marriage remained unconsummated and still vulnerable to annulment.

Maybe that was why he wanted to keep their marriage unconsummated. In that way, she reasoned, he could easily wiggle his way out of the marriage commitment whenever he chose. But it didn’t seem tenable, considering that he was a duke and would need an heir if he wanted to keep the title in the family even if he had mentioned he already had a relative who would take the title.

She tried to run through the list of relatives he had but none came to mind. Perhaps sshe would check the library to see if she could find his family’s pedigree.

But if that was not the reason, there was a chance he was impotent. Somehow, she doubted that a man as virile as Percival could be impotent. He appeared too virile and possessed an innate magnetism that she believed would not be seen in an infertile man.

But then what did she really know about male fertility?

Those reasons aside, there was one other possibility that she wanted to ignore—the fact that he was avoiding her because he found her unattractive because of her scar. That would mean that the passion they had shared when they kissed at the altar was a figment of her imagination.

If that was the case, it would hurt even more than him choosing an easy way to annul the marriage when he simply didn’t require the arrangement to further his goals.

For one, she had tried to maintain a stoic attitude in regard to her scar and the changes it had brought to her life. For two, she had finally experienced what it was like not to be the object of the opposite sex’s attention—a sharp contrast to the life she had led before the accident.

She had learned to stick to the walls of ballrooms with the other wallflowers—at least, there, she had not felt the need for the rigorous drills of forcing a smile and displaying perfect etiquette. There, she only had to worry about not causing a scene with her improper manners.

With Percival, she had found herself feeling things she would have failed to put a name to if she hadn’t had that talk with her sisters.

She turned to the other side of her bed, biting her lip. She desired her husband, that much she could admit. How could she not, when he was entirely different from every other man she had met?

He was handsome. An epitome of masculine beauty, as far as she was concerned. But it was the darkness that she could sense beneath his facade that drew her to him. Then, there was also the confident way in which he carried himself. She found herself itching to reach out and ruffle his hair or do anything to make him lose his temper.

She sighed again and rolled onto her other side. She was confused by the rejection she had faced earlier, considering that she had seen the barely restrained heat in his eyes as they landed on her.

Sometimes, she even felt the burning intensity of his gaze on her body while she performed her duties. Based on that alone, she could safely guess that he was attracted to her. It was odd that he was reluctant to give in to his desire and consummate their union.