They all ran off.
Ellie followed her husband into the kitchen. "That was very kind of you to allow the servants to use your bathing facilities," she said quietly, wanting to get in the first word before he started to rail at her.
"They're our bathing facilities."' he snapped, "and don't think you're going to distract me."
"I hadn't meant to. I can't help it if you did a kind deed."
Charles exhaled, trying to give his heart time to resume a normal rhythm. Christ, what a day it had been, and it wasn't even noon yet. He'd woken up, found his wife with her head stuck in an oven, gotten into his first argument with her, kissed her soundly (and ended up wanting much, much more than that) only to be interrupted by a damned fire that she appeared to have started.
His throat was raw, his back was killing him, and his head pounded like a gavel. He looked down at his arms, which appeared to be shaking. Marriage, he decided, was not proving to be a healthful endeavor.
He turned his gaze to his wife, who looked as if she didn't know whether to smile or frown. Then he looked back over at the oven, which was still spewing smoke.
He groaned. A year from now he'd be dead. He was sure of it.
"Is something wrong?" Ellie asked quietly.
He turned to her with a disbelieving expression. "Is something wrong?" he echoed. "Is something WRONG?" This time it was more of a boom.
She frowned. "Well, obviously something, er, some things, are wrong, but I was speaking in a more general sense, you see. I—"
"Eleanor, my bloody kitchen is burned to a crisp!" he fairly yelled. "I fail to see anything general about it."
Her chin jutted out. "It wasn't my fault."
Silence.
She crossed her arms and stood her ground. "The rack had been moved. It wasn't where I left it. That oven didn't stand a chance of not catching fire. I don't know who—"
"I don't give a damn about the rack. One, you shouldn't have tampered with the oven in the first place. Two"—now he was ticking off on his fingers— "you shouldn't have run in here while the fire was raging. Three, you damn well shouldn't have stuck your head back in the bloody oven while it was still hot. Four—"
"That is quite enough," Ellie bit out.
"I'll tell you when it's enough! You—" Charles stopped himself from continuing, but only because he realized he was shaking with rage. And, perhaps, with a little latent fear.
"You're making a list about me," she accused. "You're making a list of all of my shortcomings. And," she added, wagging her finger at him, "you cursed twice in one sentence."
"God help me," he moaned. "God help me."
"Hmmmph," she said, somehow managing to incorporate a world of scathing reprovement in that one semi-syllable. "He certainly won't if you continue cursing like that."
"I believe you once told me you weren't overly fussy about such things," he ground out.
She crossed her arms. "That was before I was a wife. Now I am expected to be fussy about such things."
"God save me from wives," he groaned.
"Then you shouldn't have married one," she snapped.
"Ellie, if you don't shut your mouth now, God help me, I'm going to wring your neck."
Ellie rather thought that she'd made her opinions clear on the possibility that God was going to help him, so she contented herself with muttering, "One curse is understandable, but two ... Well, two is really too much."
She wasn't certain, but she thought she saw Charles roll his eyes to the ceiling and mutter, "Take me now."
That did it. "Oh for the love of God," Ellie snapped, uncharacteristically taking the Lord's name in vain. After all, she had been raised by a reverend. "I'm not so bad that death is preferable to marriage with me."
He leveled a look in her direction that told her he wasn't so sure.
"This marriage doesn't have to be permanent," she burst out, humiliated fury making her words shrill. "I could march out that door right this second and obtain an annulment."
"What door?" he drawled. "All I see is a charred piece of wood."
"Your sense of humor leaves much to be desired."
"My sense of humor— Where the hell are you going?"
Ellie didn't reply, just continued on her way past the charred piece of wood she preferred to think of as a door.
"Get back here!"
She kept going. Well, she would have kept going if his hand hadn't found the sash of her dress and yanked her back against him. Ellie heard a ripping sound, and for the second time that day, she found herself pressed up against the hard length of her husband's body. She couldn't see him, but she could feel him intimately against her back, and she could smell him—she would swear she could smell him, even through the lingering smoke.
"You will not get an annulment," he ordered, his lips practically touching her ear.
"I'm surprised you care," she retorted, trying to ignore the way her skin was tingling where his breath warmed her.
"Oh, I care," he growled.
"You care about your blasted money!"
"As you care about yours, so we had better make the best of this."
Ellie was saved from having to admit that he was right by a loud "ahem" from the direction of the doorway. She looked up to see Claire, who was standing with her arms crossed. A huge, irritated frown covered the girl's face.
"Oh, good day, Claire," Ellie said with a tight smile, trying for all the world to appear as if she were quite pleased to be standing in this extremely awkward position in the middle of a burned-out kitchen.