“Does it matter?” he shot back.

She took a step back. “Yes,” she said quietly. “Yes, I think it does.”

“You are my wife,” he said, his eyes blazing. “I have pledged to you my fidelity and my support. I have granted you all my worldly possessions, I have granted you my name.”

Iris had never seen him so angry, had never imagined his body so tightly coiled with fury. Her hand itched to slap him, but she refused to demean herself in such a fashion.

“Why does it matter how it happened?” Richard finished.

Iris’s lips had come together to form words, but the crack in his voice stopped her. Something was not right. She forced her gaze to his face, her eyes meeting his with uncompromising intensity.

His eyes held hers . . . and then slid away.

Chapter Fifteen

HE WAS THE worst sort of bastard.

Richard knew this, but still he turned for the door. He could tell her the truth. There was no reason he couldn’t except that he was selfish and he was a coward, and damn it all, he wanted just a few more days before her displeasure descended into outright hatred. Was that really so much to ask?

“I will leave you,” he said stiffly. And he would have done. If nothing had happened, if she’d not said a word, he would have opened the door and taken himself across the house. He would have shut himself in a room with a bottle of brandy and walls thick enough so that he could not hear her cry.

But then, just as his hand pressed down on the handle of the door, he heard her whisper, “Did I do something wrong?”

His hand stilled. But his arm trembled.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said. But of course he knew exactly what she meant.

“It’s—I—”

He forced himself to turn around. Dear God, it hurt to watch her like this, so awkward and pained. She couldn’t get the sentence out, and if he were any sort of man, he’d figure out some way to spare her this humiliation.

He swallowed convulsively, searching for words that he knew would not be enough. “You are everything I could ask for in a wife.”

But the look in her eyes was distrustful.

He took a long breath. He could not leave her like this. He crossed the room and reached for her hand. Perhaps if he brought it to his lips, if he kissed her . . .

“No!” She jerked her hand back, her voice as raw as her eyes. “I can’t think straight when you do that.”

Under normal circumstances, he would have delighted in such an admission.

Iris looked away, her eyes squeezing shut for a second, just long enough for her head to give a little jerk. “I don’t understand you,” she said in a very low voice.

“Do you need to?”