Sacha would have been vastly amazed could he have known that Lady Wentworth bestowed so much thought on his brother, and more still had anyone told him that she had far greater admiration for that brother’s tall, splendid physique than for himself. It never entered into his head to imagine that he was made so welcome at Sunstead because Christina hoped to annoy Valentine by this friendship.
Popular as he was usually with all women, Sacha might freely be forgiven for supposing he was welcomed by his cousin’s wife pour ses beaux yeux, and not for so strangely ulterior a reason.
The truth was that Christina was furious with Valentine, not merely for the part he had attempted to play in her life, but because he held himself so coldly aloof from her.
It had not taken her long to learn in Dynechester what position it was this man held, and how infinitely superior he was to the man she had married.
She longed to subjugate Valentine, to fascinate him and rule him, even as she ruled most other men with whom she came in contact.
Valentine was the first person who had punished Christina’s vanity, and the woman, while she could never forgive this, never ceased to desire a conquest of one who showed her so openly his complete indifference mingled with his contempt.
That Valentine was so invulnerable to her spite was by no means a satisfaction to Christina. She had been foolish enough to expect that he would have declared some protest to her decree about the Dower House—not, of course, for his own sake, but for his sister’s—and as the time slipped by and he made no sign beyond installing Grace and himself in their new house, her annoyance deepened.
Her will in connection with this uprooting of Grace from her old home had been worked in open defiance of her husband. Mark Wentworth had treated his wife to a pleasant half hour when he heard what she had done.
He had a very special vocabulary that came into office when drink and rage together claimed him for their own, and Christina had to submit to hear herself abused in a manner that was a revelation to her.
The result of this scene was to increase her hatred of Grace, for though she would have died rather than have confessed the same, Christina was hotly jealous of Grace Ambleton.