Free The Lady In Question by Victoria Alexander Page A

quiet, reserved creature I was before you. Never!
    “You tried to take it away, though, didn’t you? Why?” Her voice lowered. “When we married, you treated me as if I were of no consequence. As if you didn’t care in the least. I did not expect love, Charles, but I did expect” — she searched for the words — “something beyond polite tolerance. Something akin to the charm and desire you had shown me up until then. I didn’t understand at the time and I do not understand now. Did you regret our marriage the very moment we said our vows? Did you know what a horrendous mistake it was? Did you dislike me so intensely then that you could not bear to be in my presence? Did you leave me?”
    She paused to catch her breath. Maybe it was anger as much as guilt that drove her from her sleep every night.
    She forced a note of calm to her voice. “You have left me a great fortune, Charles, substantial enough to live a life of independence. I shall not have to marry some deadly dull gentleman now. You have given me choices and for that I shall be forever thankful. I shall mourn you, of course, but not for a man I now realize I did not know at all. But for what you and I never shared, never had the chance to share. And for that loss, my errant husband, I blame you. We could have had so much together. We might have loved in time. I liked you a great deal, and I thought you liked me.”
    Her chin jerked up defiantly. “You are gone and I will tell you here and now for the last time, I am sorry for your death. But I have an entire lifetime stretching before me. And I shall not hesitate to live it.”
    A sense of urgency to act rushed through her and without thinking she stepped to the bed, grabbed the draperies hanging from the cornice and yanked hard. The fabric resisted for a moment, then ripped free with a satisfying sound that echoed in the night. Delia tore at the bed hangings until they piled on the floor. She pulled the coverlet and pillows off the bed and tossed them aside, then moved to the windows and pulled down the draperies. She wanted to tear the very paper from the walls with her bare fingers. And with every act, with every shred of material that floated to the floor with a slow ease that bespoke more of a dream than reality, the weight that had settled on her six long months ago lessened. She paused in the middle of the room to catch her breath and survey her handiwork. This was all ridiculous, of course. She had no idea what had come over her. She’d never been prone to displays of violence or anger. But she had changed and Charles had changed her and, no matter what happened from here on, for that she would be eternally grateful.
    Fabric lay in soft drifts around the room, illuminated by the starlight, a strangely peaceful scene. A peace that invaded her soul.
    Somewhere in the distance, or possibly only in her mind, she heard the sound of amused laughter. Charles’s laughter. Not the cold, remote husband he became but the rake who had charmed her in private parlors and teased her in discreet meetings and introduced her to secrets in this very room and captured, if not her heart, then at least her desire. And the oddest belief seized her that he approved. That, regardless of his behavior at the end, he would want her to carry on with her life. The very idea that her dead husband wanted her to destroy his room was absurd. Yet, what about the two of them from the first moment to the last was not absurd?
    “Charles…” She shook her head and smiled. “I will never know what was real with you and what was a pretense, will I?”
    She started slowly toward her room. In the morning, she would begin a new life and, for the first time since her marriage, she looked forward to the new day.
    She reached the dressing room door and glanced back at her husband’s chamber. Tomorrow, she would make it hers.
    “Thank you, Charles,” she said softly, and closed the door firmly behind her. She looked dreadful in