Borrowed Vows by Sandra Heath Read Free Book Online Page A

coldly.
    “I haven’t made a cuckold of you, Dane, but you make a deceived wife of me every time you think of her. She’ll always come first, won’t she?”
    “I said you weren’t to speak of her!” he snapped, his eyes darkening.
    He frightened her a little, and she drew back slightly, remembering what Alice had said about Elizabeth’s bitter legacy. “Then let’s not speak of Thomas either,” she said.
    He was silent for a moment, as if struggling to quell the anger she’d raised by mentioning his first wife. Then he looked at her again. “If I’m the only one, why have you been so distant and lackluster between the sheets since my return?” he asked dryly. “Oh, I accept that you’ve never been a creature of great sensuality and passion, but your enthusiasm is now conspicuous for its complete absence. I’m not a monster, Rosalind, I will not take my conjugal rights by force, but I do expect an explanation. If you no longer feel anything for me, you must say so, but if the reason is another man, then woe betide you both, especially him. I swear he’ll soon draw his last breath, whoever he is.”
    Her voice was a tremulous whisper. “There isn’t anyone, Dane. Upon my honor, I swear there isn’t.” Somehow she met his eyes.
    He gazed intently at her in the moonlight and then sat back again. “We shall see,” he murmured.
    “I’m yours and only yours,” she said softly.
    He averted his gaze to the silhouetted hedgerows as the carriage left the main turnpike and struck west down a narrow country road toward Marchwood village and castle, and beyond them the Severn estuary. “If that is so, madam, I trust you still intend to observe your wifely duties by accompanying me to Cheltenham tomorrow night. Or are you now considering another sudden indisposition?”
    The Waterloo ball. “Yes, of course I’m still accompanying you. Mrs. Fowler is putting the final touches to the new gown I’ve ordered for the occasion.” What insignificant details she’d somehow absorbed from that darned plot, even to the name of the dressmaker. It was crazy!
    “It would be more suitable if you used a London couturière rather than a rustic seamstress.”
    “Hardly a rustic seamstress. Mrs. Fowler is excellent; the Duchess of Beaufort patronizes her occasionally, and so does Lady Berkeley.”
    “I daresay what you say is true, but I’m not fool enough to be taken in by the praise you heap on her. The truth is that a local dressmaker gives ample opportunity for assignations.”
    She had to look away, for he was right. That was indeed why Rosalind used the obligingly discreet Mrs. Fowler.
    The sound of the carriage wheels changed. From drumming over hard-packed stones they rolled over uneven cobbles as the vehicle entered Marchwood village. Everything was quiet, except for the local alehouse, where she heard men singing a bawdy ballad in the taproom. Suddenly she saw the dark medieval towers of the castle looming above the rooftops. They rose among tall trees only yards from the main street, and then vanished from her view as the carriage turned sharply off the road on to the brief gravel drive that led to the beautifully restored drawbridge and gatehouse. For a second or so there was the hollow rumble of hooves and wheels on ancient wood, and then the carriage swept into the wide courtyard where she knew from the Rosalind in her that the doomed Plantagenet king, Richard II, had bestowed a knighthood upon the first Sir Dane Marchwood.
    The castle seemed to fold around Kathryn as Dane helped her alight. She could hear the night breeze whispering around the battlements and rustling through the ivy on the walls. Everything was silver from the moon, even Dane’s eyes as they met hers for a moment.
    “We’ve played husband and wife long enough today, madam. I bid you good night,” he said abruptly, then released her hand and walked swiftly away toward the immense stone porch that guarded the main doorway in the corner of