Page 88 of The Rogue’s Countess

“But you were easily convinced to accept my hand.”

“That’s unfair of you, Gideon.” She glared at him as if he’d insulted her. “I tried to convince you to wait until we knew if I was…but you refused to listen to me. You didn’t even try to consider my suggestion. You were the one who insisted we not wait.”

“Yet all the while, you were spewing your venomous words onto the page to humiliate me.”

“No, it wasn’t—”

“No more lies, Phoebe. Either you did or didn’t write that chapter with the intent to humiliate me, which is it?” he snarled as he pointed to the papers she held. The helpless look on her face only increased his anger.

“Answer me.”

At his thundering command, she recoiled from him. Her reaction was a blow to every inch of his body. Did Phoebe really think so little of him that she might believe he would do something to harm her? The answer to his question was in the pages she held in her hand. The truth sliced deep into his soul until he wanted to roar at the pain it caused him.

Instead, Gideon allowed his anger to consume the pain as he glared at her until an icy bitterness settled on her features. It was a look he’d never seen before, and it made his muscles tighten as he steeled himself for words that would no doubt emphasize the poisonous ones she’d written.

§ § §

Dear God, he was furious.

Unforgiving.

Phoebe’s fingers tightened on the papers in her hands. The ink-filled pages of words filled with contempt, insults, and lies that she’d written in a fit of outrage and pain. Frantically, she tried to think of something she could say that would calm Gideon’s anger. Helplessly she stared at him, and the rage on his face made her stomach roil with a strong wave of nausea.

God, how she wished she’d never written the chapter in her hand. Then he wouldn’t have found—something sent her brain careening in a completely different direction. How had he found the chapter? The note from Lawrence she understood. It must have fallen to the floor when she was dressing so fast.

But the chapter had been buried in one of her drawers beneath several layers of undergarments. There was only one way he could have found it. He’d spied on her. It was a demonstration of his complete lack of trust in her. A trust he obviously thought unnecessary to reciprocate given his behavior last night. Bitterness spiraled through her at the hypocrisy of it all.

“How did you find this, Gideon?” she asked coldly. A small nick in the armor of his anger showed on his face as he stared at her in surprise before narrowing his gaze at her.

“The drawer where you’d hidden it fell out of the wardrobe. It spilled out the contents onto the floor.”

“Do you really expect me to believe the drawer fell out of its own accord?”

She could hear the ice layering her question. An emotion she didn’t recognize flickered in his eyes, but he didn’t flinch as he returned her glare. There wasn’t even the tiniest bit of remorse or regret on his face.

“How I found it has nothing to do with this conversation.”

“It has a great deal to do with it,” she said fiercely. Anger made her muscles grow taut, and the tension added to the pain gripping her body. “You violated my trust in you.”

“Trust in—” The laugh that blew past his lips was as if someone had taken an iron off the hearth and pressed it into her chest. It was a harsh, mocking sound filled with, God help her, loathing. “Phoebe, you don’t know the meaning of the word.”

“Considering how you humiliated me last night, I’d say the concept of the word is lost on you as well.” The sharp condemnation and contempt in her words made him jerk slightly.

“What the hell are you talking about,” he snarled.

His anger rumbled in his chest like thunder in the distance, but an odd emotion flashed in his gaze. If Phoebe didn’t know better, she would have sworn it was pain and despair. She immediately berated herself for thinking such a thing. Instead, she sniffed with disdain.

“Don’t you dare add insult to injury by pretending you don’t know what I’m referring to.”

“Does this have to do with the Duchess of Stockdale?” he bit out sharply. Phoebe glared at him as he asked the question. In the back of her mind, she noted the woman’s name.

“Oh, so now you remember your little tete-a-tete with the woman.”

“It was not a tete-a-tete, and if you had asked me about it, I would have explained everything.”

The defensive note in his voice made her grow cold. If she had asked him about his behavior? Clearly, he’d thought it unnecessary to mention his intimate meeting with the duchess unless Phoebe had questioned him about it. The callous manner in which he dismissed his indiscretion made her take a step back from him.

The pain of his betrayal and cavalier treatment of her sent an icy blast of air across Phoebe’s skin. It seeped through her pores to work its way down into her bones. Bile rose up in her throat until the bitter taste of it hit her tongue. Phoebe swallowed hard as she found her voice.