Now he stood on my doorstep, his eyes filled with cold fury. "Gabriel," he said. "Where is my wife?"

I regarded him in surprise and not a little annoyance. "Not here," I answered coolly.

Louisa readily visited my rooms whenever she needed to. Brandon knew that she did. He had never said a word, and I'd thought he'd learned since our falling out not to doubt her. But his ice-blue glare now told me that for this past year and a half he had only been letting doubt fester in his soul, nurturing it. After everything we'd been through, he hadn't learned a thing.

He followed me inside and slammed the door. A few shards of ceiling plaster settled like snow in his dark hair. "Where is she, then?"

"I have no idea. I have not spoken to Louisa in days."

He was not listening. He was staring at the woman's cloak that lay spread across the chair before my hearth, and at the slippers discarded there. His neck and face turned slowly purple and he raised his eyes to the closed bedchamber door.

The last thing the poor woman inside needed was Aloysius Brandon. I made for him, but he moved more quickly. He reached the door a second before I did, and flung it open.

He stopped. The woman slept on under my blanket, undisturbed. A dark strand of hair had snaked across the white pillow, and one soft hand had curled under her cheek.

Brandon studied her for a long time, then he slowly turned and looked at me. I reached around him and pulled the door closed.

He continued to stare at me, his breathing deep and slow. "You have damned cheek, Gabriel."