and took a sip, suddenly grateful for the extra fortification that it would provide.
“Yes. Are you contradicting me?”
“Of course not,” she said, looking down at her dinner. “You give to a great many charities.”
“There you have it,” he said, picking up his knife and fork. “Incontrovertible evidence that I am in fact generous.”
“Perhaps,” she said, slicing her steak slowly, “there is more than one type of generosity.”
His dark eyebrows shot upward. “Is that so?”
She lifted one shoulder. “Perhaps.”
“Do not speak in code. That is hardly less strenuous on my brain.”
“I am not supposed to bombard you. Much less with my opinions. Opinions are not fact. You need facts.”
“It is your opinion that I am not generous. At least not in every way.”
She let out a long breath, feeling frustrated with herself. Feeling frustrated with him. With the world. She wanted to get up out of her chair, throw her cloth napkin on the floor and run out onto one of the grand lawns. Then perhaps she might rend her garment for dramatic effect and shout at the unfeeling sky.
Of course, she would do none of that. She never did.
Instead, she looked up at him and spoke in an even, moderated tone. “Of course you are.”
“Now you are placating me.”
She let out an exasperated sigh. “Are you trying to start a fight?”
“Don’t be silly. We never fight.”
“How could you possibly know that?” she asked, a strange sensation settling in the pit of her stomach.
Of course, he wasn’t wrong. They had never fought. She had done nothing but idolize him for most of her life, and then she had married him. And in the two years since they had gotten married they’d had so little interaction they hadn’t been able to fight. And, frankly, probably wouldn’t have even if she had seen him every day.
He was indifferent to her, but he’d never been cruel. There had never been enough passion between them for there to be a fight.
“I just do,” he said.
“You are so arrogant. Even now.”
“Stingy and arrogant. That is your opinion of me. How is it that we never fight?”
“Perhaps because you are not often around,” she said, taking her first bite of steak and making a bit of a show about chewing it so that he would perhaps cease his endless questions.
* * *
Leon looked across the table at his wife. He did not know quite how to read the exchange that had just taken place between them. She was irritated with him, that much he was certain of. He wondered how often that was the case. He wondered if this was unusual, if the stress of the situation was simply overtaking her, or if she didn’t usually show him her irritation.
Or, more troubling, if he didn’t typically notice it.
She had made several comments now about him frequently being away. She made him sound as though he was an absentee husband at best. Her childhood dream centered around her home being filled with parties. Centered around her hosting these events with her husband, to recapture a part of her life that was clearly past.
Both of her parents were gone. She had made no mention of any siblings. He appeared to be all that she had left, and yet he had seen no evidence that he did very much at all to support her emotionally.
That bothered him. Regardless of whether or not it bothered the man he had been before the accident was irrelevant to him in the moment. She was caring for him. And she clearly felt uncared for in many ways.
He felt compelled to remedy that. If he had to sit around this manor and do nothing but heal for the next several weeks he might as well focus on healing his marriage as well as his body.
It was deeper than that, too. Deeper than just a desire to right a wrong from the past.
Rose was his only touchstone. She was the only person who knew him. The only person he really knew. She was his anchor in an angry sea. And without her, he would be swept away completely.
He needed to shore up the connection between them.
He had lost himself. He could remember nothing of who he was. And from the sounds of things, their connection was much more tentative than it should be.
She was all he had. He could not lose her.
There was only one solution. He had to seduce his wife.
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