Ben could feel heat rising to his face as she admitted to exactly what he’d suspected. Moments ago, he’d been concerned only for her happiness — specifically, how much it was liable to suffer since she was married to him and how he might best mitigate that suffering — but now he didn’t know what to think. It was as though the floor had fallen out from beneath him and he didn’t even know how to orient himself in this new, strange space, much less which way to go from here.

“You didn’t even try to ask me,” he said, in a tone of disbelief. Maybe she was telling the truth about originally giving him the potion to try and convince him to leave the party, but why would he believe her at this point? Why would he trust a word she said? If she’d asked him to leave the party, he would have. Depending on the tone of her voice when she’d asked, probably immediately and without hesitation. Particularly given what they’d done earlier that night in the little side room, he would have trusted her if she’d said there was some reason he needed to make a quick exit, even if she didn’t explain what that reason was.

Now that he was thinking about it, though, did he know that that was when she’d given him the potion? Maybe it had been earlier — before the little interlude in the room at all. Had he been drinking anything right before that had happened? He couldn’t remember now. He was always drinking; it wasn’t the sort of detail he committed to memory. Not that he was doubting that he would’ve slept with her — but he would’ve left the party, too, and he apparently hadn’t done that of his own free will. This called the entire night, and his memories of it, into question. What if he wasn’t remembering everything? Or what if his memories of it had been tainted by the potion he’d had, and he was remembering some sugar-coated version of the truth? How would he ever know?

“Well, it doesn’t matter much what your intentions were, does it?” he asked rather hotly. “That’s certainly not all we did last night.”