Both of Marya’s questions were very good questions – but the first was impossible to answer. What was wrong? Nothing with him, he was sure; despite the way his hand shook slightly where he held it in a fish by his side, or the mounting anxiety of almost’s that were climbing the walls of his mind, stepping on one another’s heads to reach the level of Top Concern.
And then there was the whole matter of what was wrong between them. Not in practice, or through anyone’s fault, but hanging in the air. A sparking, unfamiliar thing that was uncomfortable and foreign. Uncomfortable and foreign, like Tyler had been when he’d first showed up in England, but even then – seeing Marya for the first time, he’d felt like he’d known her his whole life.
No, this was just a pesky issue of the face he wore outdoors colliding with his truer, realer one underneath—or so he liked to think, told himself when he began to suspect it was actually the other way around—and exposing a side of himself to Marya that Marya didn’t really need to see. Because this was simply: business, and if there was one thing Tyler Warrington Jr. knew how to do, it was take care of business. Swiftly, quietly, ruthlessly.
(But if there was one thing he did not know how to do, it was answer his wife when she was looking at him with the levels of alarm that he worked so hard—was working, present tense, right now—to keep out of their home.)
So, the second question seemed much easier to address.
“The little journalist boy,” he said, sliding his hands into his pockets. As he tried to relax his face, the whole of his tension seemed contained in one eyebrow; one shoulder. Each arched unnaturally but allowed his face to find some semblance of calm.
The power rush of owning this manor, the fierce protective instinct, the gutting shame of a near miss; they had to be replaced with a reminder that this was his home if he was ever going to come down from the high of wrapping his fingers around Vince Sinclair’s throat. And what better to remind him of home than Marya? The two were synonymous, so he gazed at her quietly. Stepped closer, chewed the inside of his cheek. Lightly, tentatively, extended a hand – though they were still too far to touch.
“Gorynych knows who invited him, but he’d snuck away from the party…” As if he needed to prove himself, Tyler’s arm drifted in the direction of the muffled sounds of revelry below; the staircase that both of them could locate perfectly fine, without added reference. “He was poking around, going through the rooms. I saw him out.”
The last sentence landed with more of a thud than intended. It wasn’t unwarranted, though; the scene had not been polished or pretty. “We cannot have events here anymore,” Tyler added, almost absently. He fixed the cuff of his sleeve, though he’d done it twice already since she’d happened upon him. “They’ll be going through our bedroom drawers before the year is out, at this rate.”
The tension that hung in the air between them was awful, buzzing with a dangerous electricity. Marya was concerned that one wrong move could would take her down.
Which was ridiculous. This was their house, the one place she had never had felt governed by rules of right and wrong. A house without an overbearing mother or over competitive sisters. A place where she didn’t have to put up with the smiles on people’s faces while wondering what they were saying behind her back. Just herself, her son, and her husband. Her husband who now looked like he had his own battle waging besides his steel facade.
That’s when the feeling was overtaken by a different one. A protectiveness flared up from a place it clearly had been smoldering the whole time, waiting for something to creep close enough to let it catch. She dropped the dresses with a lack of care that would have made some in the ballroom faint, going to his side with a few decisive steps.
“What did he do?” Her voice had a hint of hard anger it had picked up from his, but her touch was only soft as she scooped up his hand. She left her fingers brush down his wrist and graze over his heartbeat. The details of what happened didn’t much matter. She already knew whose side she was on. That was a decision she made long ago.
“The Prophet told me they might send someone. He wasn’t one of the reporters I knew, but he had the proper credentials-“ Only when she realized that she was attempted to explain herself did she realize she felt guilty. Turning a sincere gaze up to Tyler, she gripped his hand a little tighter.
“Tyler, I’m sorry. With everything going on tonight, I didn’t give him much of a thought. I will write to Franklin at the Prophet in the morning and let him know how unacceptable that kind of behavior is. I believe we deserve to expect respect when we invite them into our home.”
His next words caught her off guard, because she thought it was some kind of joke. It seemed like a strange time for it, but then she had spent enough of the past few weeks fielding his fretting over her pregnancy that it felt like a certain return to normalcy. She let out a small, airy laugh, thankful for the relief of it. The sensation of her feet being back on solid ground.
“Do you mean that? Darling, you have every right to be upset, but there was no harm done, right? It’s just one nosy reporter. What’s the worst he could have done anyway? We have ward against stealing of anything too valuable.”
