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He did not know how to ask why or how to comfort her.

"It is a little rude to leave the guests unattended for so long," he said instead, and immediately winced.

He didn't mean to admonish her. Words seemed not to be his forte today.

Luckily, she did not seem to take offense. "You have been trading anecdotes with your parents. I wanted to give you time to catch up."

"You were not interrupting. We could all have caught up together. And since you are my wife, they might have liked you to participate. To get to know you better."

"I doubt it," she muttered under her breath.

"Pardon me?"

"Nothing." She stood, turning from the mirror, and brushed down her skirts. When she raised her head to meet his eyes, the redness was gone and something bright and stubborn had taken its place. "I am ready to rejoin the company."

"No, please, I want to know." He stepped further into the room. "Why would you assume my parents would not want to get to know you?"

For a moment she studied him, her lips pressed together. Then she said, in a voice as sharp as a blade, "I simply find it interesting that your parents know your mistress by name, have met her on a number of occasions, and approve of her."

"You are upset about Marie," he muttered, more to himself than to her.

"I am not upset."

He raised a brow.

"I am merely pointing out," she said, enunciating each word, "that they keep doting on Marie, your supposed savior, when from everything I read, you were wounded trying to protect her. And I was the one who patched you up, stitch by bloody stitch, yet all I get is suspicion and feigned smiles while she gets praised⁠—"

"First of all," Sutton interrupted, holding up a hand.

He did not know whether to laugh or cry. She was not jealous of his affections.

Her pride was wounded, because someone else had been given credit that she believed belonged to her.

"She did save me," he said quietly. "She shot a man. Killed him, in front of her own door. It is not something she is suited to, and I am sure it keeps her awake at night. But if she had not done it, he would have put a lead ball through my heart. So she is, indeed, my savior." He rubbed his jaw, feeling the rasp of his beard under his palm. "Secondly, your stitching me up was a very kind thing to do, and it does not take away from what Marie did, nor does her bravery take away from your kindness."

Temperance's hands stilled. Her voice, when it came, was much quieter.

"I did not know she shot a man for you."

"She did."

She looked down at the carpet, then up again. "Then I suppose I ought to send her a thank-you note, for saving my husband."

My husband. The words slid through him like warm brandy. Or like warm milk with brandy.

A posset.

"Perhaps you should," he agreed, as easily as he could manage. "She is a wonderful human being. That is why my parents love her. Not because⁠—"

"As opposed to me, of course, who they are convinced is a hedge-witch."

It was so unexpected that a laugh tore out of him before he could stop it. She glared, but the corner of her mouth twitched.

He took a deep breath. "They do not know you, Temperance. Hell, I do not know you, which I believed was rather the point of the new term you added to our agreement." He softened his voice. "I am not saying this to be rude, or to throw the past in your face. But you left, and for seven years you did not return, and my parents have watched me bear the consequences. What did you expect them to do?"

She swallowed. The silence stretched, long enough that he heard a footman pass in the corridor and the muffled laughter of his parents rising up the stairwell.

"Honestly?" she said at last. "I expected them not to care. My parents never did. I assumed that was simply what parents were, for people of our station. It is strange to me that yours do."