Amanda Scott Read Free Page B

“There was little room for error, if you will recall. You were quite alone with her when I walked into that room. Your arms were twined around her, and—”
    “I have said we will not discuss her,” he cut harshly. “I came here today to demand an—”
    “Demand?” Sybilla shook her head. “I no longer recognize your right to make demands of me, Ned. You gave up that right when you left our home—”
    “I did not leave by choice, for God’s sa—”
    “You left,” she insisted, “and you have done nothing since then to demonstrate concern for my well-being or—”
    “Leave it!” He took a menacing step toward her, but she did not flinch. Even when he clenched his fists, she did not react but only continued to gaze at him with an air of curious interest. “Damn it, Syb, that look alone is enough to drive a man to a frenzy. If I were a violent sort …”
    “You put your fist through our bedchamber door once, as I recall,” she observed reminiscently.
    He growled, but although the temptation to shake her showed clearly in his expression, he restrained himself, and when Robert entered again a few seconds later, accompanied by a maidservant carrying a tray, Ramsbury was able to turn back toward the window with as much dignity as if what they had been discussing had been of no particular moment.
    Sybilla gestured toward the mahogany Pembroke table in front of the fireplace, and the footman directed the maidservant to set the tray upon it.
    “Will that be all, m’lady?” he inquired.
    “Yes, thank you.” She watched Ramsbury, who had not moved from his place near the window until the servants had gone. Then, thinking she would do well to calm him a bit if she was ever going to find out what was wrong, she said quietly, “Perhaps you would like me to pour your wine for you.”
    “I’ll do it,” he said, rousing himself from his thoughtful pose and moving toward me table. “We have to talk, Syb.”
    “About what? You said you had found me out, but I don’t know what you can—”
    “Don’t,” he said, looking directly at her. He held the decanter in one hand and his glass in the other, but he paused now without pouring. “I know, I tell you, so it is of no use—”
    “But there can be nothing to know. I’ve scarcely laid eyes upon you, after all, in a twelvemonth, and even when I was in London before Christmas—”
    “The less said about that, the better,” he muttered. “Your behavior then certainly left a great deal to be desired.”
    “Why, whatever can you mean?” she asked demurely, only to add immediately and on a gurgle of laughter, “No, no, do not look at me like that. I will agree that had we still been living together, my little flirtations—”
    “Little?” But his expression relaxed, and he poured his wine at last, then gestured toward the tray. “Do you want a cup of this tea Robert brought you?”
    “Yes, please.” She got up and moved to sit in one of the pair of gilt-wood Hepplewhite chairs flanking the table. “Why is it that we can never talk together without quarreling, Ned, as we were used to do? Do you remember how it was when I was in London with Aunt Eliza before she died?”
    “I remember.” He set down me decanter and his glass and lifted the teapot. “That was before my father took a hand in things. You had more beauty and poise than all the others put together and more charm in one finger—”
    “I was older than the others,” she pointed out with a grimace, remembering the pangs of that first Season, when her aunt had insisted that she and her sister go to London at last and leave her father for two months with only the servants to look after him. “I was nearly twenty-two.”
    “The others were hags,” he said. “I remember.”
    “But you wanted no part of me after your father decided that the wealthy Sir Mortimer Manningford’s daughter would make you a good match, and I doubt you think about me much now, either, especially when you are