Vane resisted the urge to curse. “You misunderstand, I’m afraid.” He provided the proper address.

“Yes, Duke. With all due haste.” The man returned the scarf to the lower half of his face and took up the reins.

As the carriage rumbled away, Vane pivoted on his heel and returned to the house, only to find the door locked. A blast of wind cut through his coat, chilling his spine.

He gripped the handle. “Sophia.”

“Go away,” she cried, her voice muffled by three inches of wood.

Carved into the spandrels at the upper corners of the door, two cherubs crouched above him, peering down with the most vexatious expressions of mirth. He glared back, which, admittedly, accomplished nothing.

“Please open the door.”

In return she bellowed, “Take. The carriage. And leave.”

“Not until we talk.”

He could only interpret the responsive tangle of unintelligible nonsense as a rejection of his request. Turning, he stared out into the night, clenched fists resting on his hips.

From this elevated vantage point, he could not see even the slightest evidence of Lacenfleet in the vale below. A thickening, frost-laden fog made the darkness impenetrable. Old memories tugged at the corner of his mind, but he commanded himself to the present, returning his gloves to his quickly numbing hands.

For a moment, his spirit wavered. Perhaps, after all, he owned too twisted, too tangled a soul to justify claim to Sophia’s respect and love. Perhaps, as Wolverton had said, his efforts came too late.

As if in answer, a vision came into his mind of Sophia on their wedding day, peering up at him during the service from beneath her headdress of feathers and lace, wearing the most astounding expression of unadulterated joy. Then another from their honeymoon in Scotland. Her eyes vivid green, her hair wet, and her chemise plastered transparent against her nymphlike body, as they’d frolicked near naked in the loch. But best of all, the look of shock on her face the moment they’d realized the visiting parson had just discovered them.

Arriving at his decision, Claxton strode toward the remaining carriage.

* * *

Sophia rubbed at the frosted pane and squinted, watching the carriage disappear into the fog and snow. Astonishingly, Claxton had actually done exactly as she demanded, which only made her feel more wretched.

Now she was alone, with only her misery and the very recent memory of finding her husband in Lady Meltenbourne’s arms. Turning from the window, she faced the silent vestibule. There was nothing to do but have a good, miserable cry.

All at once, the emotion she’d held inside all evening crowded her throat, enormous and unstoppable. Hiccuping through tears, she pressed her hand to her mouth and returned to the scene of her recent trauma. Only to freeze on the threshold.

Claxton sat in a chair beside the fire, staring at her over gloved, steepled fingertips, his hat perched on his knee. Ice crystals sparkled on the shoulders of his coat and in his raven’s-wing-dark hair.

“Hello, darling,” he said, with a dangerous gleam in his eyes.

His chest rose and fell as if he’d exerted himself in executing whatever trick it had taken to get inside the locked house and into his present position. If he had sent the carriage off, that left her alone with him for the night. A bubble of hysteria rose up inside her.

“Oh, you.” From a nearby table, she snatched a figurine and raised it above her head—

“Don’t.” He stood, a vision of dark wool, flashing blue eyes, and utter calm. “That belonged to my great-grandmother.”

Sophia almost hurled the stated heirloom, just to see if its destruction would cause a break in his dispassionate façade. It was no wonder he had been chosen by the Crown to represent England’s interests abroad. Everything about him screamed of control. But she returned the figurine to its place. After all, she bore no ill will toward Claxton’s great-grandmother, only Claxton. Finding nothing else within arm’s reach suitable for hurling, she rounded the settee to confront him.

“Don’t call me your darling,” she raged, barely able to contain the impulse to leap on him and pummel him with her fists. Even now, the scent of Lady Meltenbourne’s perfume clung to him. It clouded her nostrils, driving her toward the most uncontrolled madness. “You forfeited the right long ago. Why are you even here?”

He muttered something that sounded like “because of Scotland.”

“What did you say?” Sophia demanded.

“I said, because I’m a deuced selfish bastard,” he growled.

“How did you even get inside?” She glared up from beneath the brim of her velvet cap, which she still wore, in addition to her redingote and gloves.

He smiled rather like a wolf, stripping the gloves from his hands, which unnerved her further because it indicated his intention to stay. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Though difficult to justify, even to herself, in this moment she ached, feeling more sadness than fury. He stood not two feet away, looking so tall and dark and dashing. Against all good sense, her heart still tried its feeble best to recognize him not as a wastrel but as the man she’d once loved.

“Vile man,” she shouted. “I don’t want you here.”

He loomed over her, an imposing figure in the darkness. A stranger who wore the features of someone she used to know. “I came here tonight to find you—”

“And brought your mistress along for company?”

Heat flashed in his eyes, but he spoke with measured deliberation. “Good God, Sophia. Lady Meltenbourne is a bothersome gnat of a woman. She is not and has never been my mistress.”

“A mere dalliance then.”

“No.”

“How colossal a fool do you think I am?” she cried, swiping her arm at the room, indicating the cushions and bottle. “I saw the proof with my own eyes.”

“No, damn it, you didn’t.” With the meager fire at his back, his broad shoulders cast everything in shadows, including his face. “Your sisters informed me you would be here, but when I arrived, I found the countess here with Haden.”

Oh, her sisters! They could not be trusted with the merest of secrets. How she would punish them once she returned to London. Still, the pieces of the puzzle with which she had been presented made no sense.

“With Lord Haden, you say?” Eyes wide with affected drama, she searched the room, peering into shadows and behind the settee. “Where is he? No doubt vanished in the same magical manner in which you appeared? I had not realized I married into a family of sprites.”

He closed his eyes as if imposing calm. “You would have passed his carriage on your way through the village. The bloody driver misheard the instructions and left before I could get them both in the carriage.” Again his eyes opened to her. “If you did not realize it, the countess was quite inebriated, as was my brother.”

She trembled in reaction, wanting to believe, but so afraid of being made his fool. Perhaps there had been a carriage. The night had been so dark, and she preoccupied. She did not know Haden very well. He’d returned to London only recently, having spent the last two years abroad, the most recent seven months in the duke’s diplomatic retinue. Still, he’d earned the reputation of a rakehell. Much like his brother, she supposed. Perhaps things were even more sordid than she realized, and the two brothers shared a mistress.

“I don’t know what to believe,” she exclaimed, turning from him, now not wanting to see his face or his seemingly earnest expression.

He came round, forcing her to do so. A sudden passion blazed to life in his eyes.

“Believe me.” He uttered the words fiercely through clenched teeth. “Me, Sophia. Because I tell you the truth.”

“I can’t,” she exclaimed, unsettled by the intensity of his emotion. She would not be the sort of pitiable wife who blindly believed a husband’s lies.

“You need only confirm my account with your sisters.”

“My sisters can’t explain everything,” she blurted. “If only—if only it was just Lady Meltenbourne.”

He nodded, and with a turn of his wrist, he flicked his coat open to fist his hand at his hip, on the lower edge of his waistcoat. “I understand I have hurt you. It is why I followed you here tonight, in hopes of answering for myself. Please say whatever you have to say. All of it, Sophia. Because after tonight, it is done. After tonight, I will defend myself no more.”

A long moment passed, wherein Sophia paced in front of the fire. Once she spoke the words, they would be impossible to retrieve. She had held them inside so long, never confiding them even to her mother or sisters.

“You are not completely to blame. If I hadn’t been so naïve and had such unrealistic expectations of marriage, I wouldn’t have been so wounded and hurt by it all.” She closed her eyes and forced the words out. “It all started with Lady Darch.”

Claxton’s sudden exhalation of breath compelled her eyes open again. He pressed his lips together and looked away. A damning confession. The resulting stab of pain to her heart spurred her on.

“The morning we were married, in fact.”

She lowered herself to the settee and untied the ribbon underneath her chin, removing the cap from atop her head, because suddenly the satin felt like a coarse ligature across her throat, making it near impossible to breathe.

“You remember her ladyship.” Sophia scrutinized his face, wanting to observe his every reaction. “She was in my wedding party. A very beautiful widow.”

He did not move. He only listened, his face several shades paler and his jaw clamped tight.