The Viscount's Runaway Wife. Laura Martin

him, lifting her chin so she was looking him straight in the eye. ‘And how mine does.’

      ‘There you are wrong. No matter what I feel, we’re still married—I’m just as trapped by that as you.’

      Her eyes searched his face, as if trying to work out his true feelings.

      ‘You have the power to at least apply for a divorce—only men can do that. You have the power to set me free from this marriage, let me go back to my old life.’

      ‘That’s not going to happen, Lucy. We’re married and married couples live together and they socialise together. I’m not asking you to chop off a limb or scale a mountain. All I want is for you to fulfil your part of our wedding vows.’

      They stared at each other in silence for over a minute before Lucy turned on her heel and stalked away. Oliver waited until he was alone in his study before he sagged. That exchange had not gone as he’d hoped. Every time he clashed with Lucy he wished it ended differently, but she was so distant, so difficult to engage and he could feel the simmering anger beneath his own words. How could she treat him like this when it had been she who’d run away? She who had taken their son? She didn’t have the right to remain aloof and angry. Admittedly she’d built a life for herself in the year they’d been separated, but that was none of his concern. He wanted her back here as his wife and if he could, he’d wipe out all trace of the world she’d been living in, but realistically he knew that wasn’t an option.

      He wondered if she would ever thaw, if she would ever look at him with anything more than distant coolness. Surprisingly he wanted that, even though he doubted he could ever return the feelings. Perhaps they were destined to live their lives as many married couples did, putting on a front for society events and then barely speaking at home. It was what he’d imagined, when he’d first found her, but every so often he wondered if that would be enough or if one day, when his vexation had burnt itself out, whether he would want more than a cold and unfeeling marriage.