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“My Lord,” Serafina said, cold and meticulous, “one cannot by wonder why, knowing the disposition of my affections, you saw fit to woo me.”

“Because you are mine,” he said, coldly, remembering how Dickie had dragged him from so many comfortable beds, slamming him in to the wall with that same claim. 

What do you think you are you doing, Valance? Whose are you? Whose dog are you?

“As such,” he went on, still without passion, “your feelings on the matter interest me very little.”

“How dare you?” There she was again, blazing, charging forward as though she wanted to be crushed, “You think you have wed some... some object, some mindless beast?” 

Dear Lord, but she was sincere.

“Oh, please, my dear Countess,” he said, knowing somehow, with his old instinct, how best to draw her out, how best to rile her.  “I beg of you, illustrate to me the ways in which you are more than that.” 

She stared at him in mute rage. 

“Come now, wife, disabuse me of such notions. Please, what treatise have you written? What great work have you composed?”

“Women, sir, do not merely exist for decoration.”

“So, you admit that you yourself have achieved nothing?”

“Miss Wollstonecraft writes that...”

He threw back his head and laughed.

Her hand flew, a little uncertainly, but with the clear intention of slapping him. He caught her by the wrist, “Now, now, madame. Only animals strike out in anger.”

She spat in his face. 

For a brief moment, Edward was too shocked and – frankly – impressed to do anything. 

What could he do now?

He could react with coldness, even amusement. He could pretend she had no power to hurt him, that no action of hers was worth more than his contempt. Or he could...

Well, he could act.

Hard, but not too hard, he shoved her backwards. She was braced for it and there was a little something of a tussle, but in no real time she was back against the wall behind her seat, her beautiful hair disarrayed against the leather. 

“Never, madame,” Edward said, one hand on her chest, pressing her down, “never think to repeat that action.” 

He could feel her heart fluttering under his hand, could feel her breath coming tight. The second he had moved against her, she had frozen, and now lay back, unresisting. He moved his face close to her own, his lips near to hers, “Do not test my anger, my lady.” He was still gripping her wrist, wringing its tendons, vicious. “I do not wish to hurt you, but I will not be insulted.”

She gave a short, desperate gasp of laughter and angled her head towards his own, whispering, “I thought you were above the slights of such creatures as myself.” 

Edward gripped her round the throat – carefully, so as not to scratch her with her jewels. “You think me impervious to your constant harping?” He pressed, just a little. She made a sound that was only barely removed from a moan. “You pretend ignorance of the restraint I have shown in my actions and my words?”

That, though, that one seemed to harm her, though. He saw it in her eyes, the look of blissful surrender giving way to real fear. 

He eased up with his hand. 

“No,” he said, “I will not be driven to it. Content yourself, Madame. You are safe from me.”

He pulled back, swearing, in his mind, and wiping his face with the white, monogrammed square of linen he had tucked in the pocket of his coat. 

The last person who had spat in his face had been Dickie, on the afternoon that set all this in motion.

“Why,” she said, with a grim determination that he knew too well, “one might almost think I heard a man of honour speak just then, my Lord.”

If he had been what he pretended, he might had broken her for that. 

“Do you wish me to hurt you?” he said. “Do you, in fact, hope to persuade me to some extremity?”

“I would sooner you showed your true self than treated me as some cosseted pet.”

“What, precisely, do you mean, madam?”

“I mean that your villainy, your violence, your cruelty clearly recognizes no bounds.”

What on earth was she talking about now?

“If you spare me from some notion of propriety, then I would have you know I would rather be the only one to suffer the consequences of my defiance.” She had that look about her, that wild one which suggested she had screwed her courage to the sticking place and fully expected to fail. 

And Edward had no idea what was happening. 

Not in terms of the game, of course: she was trying that gambit where you stood by some principle until it got you hurt. What troubled him was that she seemed actually afraid, honestly reluctant, as though there were genuine feelings there, an real sense of duty to take the pain. 

She wasn’t half-breathless, squirming at the idea of what he might do to her, not half-eager despite her hatred of him. She was speaking hard, and low, and honestly, as though she were in some true danger. 

As though he should understand what she said. 

“And when I chose to reprimand you,” he blustered, trying for coldness, “believe me, madam, suffer you shall.”

She hit him again, or, rather, she tried. Again, he grabbed her wrist and threw her back, rougher this time. “Really, my love,” he said, “is this pettishness to be our new method of conversation? I’ve no wish to upset the carriage.”

“Do your worst,” she said.

So he kissed her. He couldn’t help it. 

No, that wasn’t true. He could have ignored her altogether, retreated to a chilly silence. 

He could also have done what Dickie would have done to him if he had ever dared utter those words in that bleak, defiant way. 

Instead, he took the easiest path available, pushing himself against her, his knee forcing hers apart and his arms seizing her about the shoulders, kissing her as best as he knew how. 

For a second, she pushed back, struggling, but then she answered, relaxing in to it, her hands clinging tight and desperate to his lapels, as though she were drowning and he were her only hope.

When he pulled back, there were tears on her face, the promise of surrender in her hating eyes. 

He shoved her back against the wall, and fell back into his own seat, hardly able to control the self-disgust thundering in him. 

“You…” she said, and then she stopped, and clenched her hands to fists again and drew a couple of deep breaths. “You’re correct, my Lord,” she said, in her mother’s tones, “that is the greatest punishment you can bestow.”

Ah, now they were back, now there were swords again. Edward reminded himself to show control. Surely this was how he wanted her, distant, in possession of herself. He gave a little breath of laughter, “I shall remember that, madame.”

But no. No, because with those words, her skin gave a butterfly shudder, and her eyes fluttered down a touch, and there they were, trapped. 

Nothing for it, then. 

He kissed her again, caressing her neck, letting his fingers stray over the jewels there, over the combs in her hair and the fine wisps of it that trailed along the nape of her neck. He was masterful rather than rough, even though her little, half-hearted movements against him implied she was gaming for the latter. His other hand traced her stays, pressed her gently down and back. He tasted the salt of her tears upon her mouth. 

“Is this sufficient punishment for you?” he whispered as he pulled away.

Serafina murmured, something that might have been protest, something that might have been assent. She still wept, but she turned her mouth towards his as though desperate for solace, as though only he who harmed her could possibly have the balm. 

This was not his style. 

Edward wanted to spring away from her, but the carriage was moving again and she was touching his face as though she needed to know that his skin was real and present after all. 

He crushed her shoulders with his hands, disarranging the lace, feeling it crumple and bunch, feeling it mar her elegance. She did not seem to care, only writhed under the grip, less as though she were resisting than she was testing the strength of his hands. His knee drove harder between her legs, rucking up petticoats and making her shift in the seat. He reached his hand down to smooth them, to bring them out of the way so they both might rest more comfortably.

“No,” she moaned, twisting, “no, you mustn’t.”

It was not protest, not real protest. He recognised it as the half-raised flag of injury that begged him to trample her, but all the same, Edward moved his hand back to her shoulder, back to the milk-white skin of her neck, rubbed the tendons there, brushed his lips against her own. 

“Now, now,” he whispered, gentle, “don’t dissemble.” And he pulled away.

Her face was red, burning red, wet. The skin of it was hot to his touch. She covered it with her hands and hunched over her rucked, disordered skirts, her rumpled decolletage. 

Edward reached across to straighten them for her, but she flinched away. 

Of course she did.

She was sobbing. He handed her his handkerchief without a word and looked down at his nails whilst she mopped her eyes and sniffed a bit, no more the fine lady, but merely an injured girl.

He was a damnable fool.

After a moment, he bent down and retrieved her fan from where she had dropped it in the melee, and returned it to her. When, without speaking, he handed her down from the carriage, she used it to veil her tearstained face.