Striding down the dirty alley that ran beside the Drury Lane theater, Patrick’s heart raced with anger. He felt unable to demand what his wife was doing all afternoon with her old beau.

Sophie, Patrick kept reminding himself, is like a drop of water: clear, honest, true. Her response to his lovemaking, for example, was unashamedly delighted. She had not erupted with false declarations of love, based on desire alone. Although Patrick had to admit that he didn’t particularly care for that aspect of her truthful nature.

The worst of it was that Patrick had wound himself into such a tangled inner mess that he couldn’t bring himself to enter his wife’s bedroom, couldn’t gather her into his arms … his own small, sweetly scented wife was lying alone at night.

If only Sophie showed some anger, or distress, or recognition of his absence from her bed, it would be easier to broach the subject. But she was ever pleasant, ever friendly.

“Doesn’t give a damn whether I’m in her bed or not,” Patrick mumbled to himself. He turned around to retrace his steps to the theater. It was bad enough that he was out roaming the streets of London at night or staying in his offices until the wee hours of the morning; Sophie shouldn’t sit alone in the theater while her husband walked about, looking for a calm he never seemed to find.

Patrick emerged from the heavy velvet drapes lining the back of the box to find it empty but for Sophie and Braddon. The Christian must finally have turned Turk, since there was an enthusiastic swordplay going on, and the ex-Christian was using a scimitar.

Braddon and Sophie made a good-looking couple, Patrick had to admit. Sophie’s curls were almost exactly the same color as Braddon’s. They had a comfortable air of companionship, of old friendship, that Patrick did not like.

Patrick strode forward and sat down to the right of Sophie. Braddon looked up, saw him, and rose. For a moment he loomed behind Patrick’s chair, giving him a friendly cuff on the shoulder.

“I’ll be off, then, Patrick. M’mother is waiting for me.”

Sure enough, Patrick saw the Countess of Slaslow, who was sitting in a box directly across from theirs, give her son a piercing glance.

“She’s as angry as a bear because I haven’t found a wife,” Braddon said glumly. Before Patrick remembered how much he disliked Braddon, he gave him a sympathetic grimace.

As the play continued, with much clanking of tin swords, yet another fragment of rational thought trickled into Patrick’s consciousness. Braddon never was any good at keeping secrets. If nothing else, Braddon’s utterly un-self-conscious attitude suggested that his relationship with Sophie did not include improprieties. But that realization brought Patrick no closer to understanding Sophie’s blithe attitude toward his desertion of her bed.