Sophie looked back, afraid to say a word. Now that Patrick had suddenly noticed that he had a wife, accusations were trembling on her tongue: Where do you go at night? Why are you kissing me? Is your courtesan unavailable? Sternly she governed her face into a smile.

Patrick didn’t say anything, so Sophie half stammered, “That was very … very … pleasant, Patrick.” Still he didn’t reply, so Sophie took his arm and they walked silently to the dining room.

Patrick was floored. When Sophie melted so sweetly into his arms, he felt a great upswing of joy. When she gasped against his mouth, and pressed herself fiercely to his body, it felt right.

But when she looked at him with that mild expression and told him his kisses were “pleasant,” he felt like walking out of the room and never coming back.

He drank about three times his normal amount of wine at supper. Every time he looked at Sophie, across the table from him, his groin throbbed and he reached for his wineglass. The only thing going through his mind was exactly what he was going to do to his wife after this interminable meal was over.

She had tied up her honey curls in a careless knot on her head, and glimmering ringlets were escaping, falling in lazy spirals past her shoulders. One elusive curl was caught on the high back of the dining-room chair, clear amber against wood that had aged to near black. Patrick stared at it, mesmerized by the memory of Sophie rubbing her hair over his chest.

Clemens removed the fillet of veal and brought in a haunch of venison.

Sophie squirmed in her chair as if ants were crawling over her body. Something about Patrick’s glance made her uneasy and excited at once. Chilly rain was tearing against the windows of the dining room, rattling the small diamond-shaped panes and making it difficult to talk. All of Sophie’s clever conversation had deserted her. Moreover, whatever subject she brought up was ground to silence by Patrick’s monosyllabic replies.

Desperately she strived to think of something to say, but Patrick cut in.

“Alex came to town yesterday.”

Sophie’s face lit up in a blinding smile. “How is Charlotte?”

Why doesn’t she smile at me like that? “I didn’t ask.”

Sophie hesitated. “The children?”

“Forgot.”

Sophie sighed and tried to think of another subject. Truly, being married wasn’t easy. She racked her brain. Perhaps literature? They still had another course to get through before Patrick left for his evening entertainment….

“Did you enjoy The Rivals?” They had been to the theater a few days before.

“The play is twenty-five years old and it showed.”

Sophie persisted. “I thought Lydia Languish was very funny.”

“Was she the heroine? The one who kept reading all those rubbishy novels?”

“Yes.”

Patrick snorted. “The Innocent Adultery! The Delicate Distress! What a way to waste time.”