Second Best Wife by Isobel Chace Read Free Book Online

mistake and very much hoped I would take her back after all. Why did you do it, Georgina? Why? It wasn't as though you wanted to marry me yourself. Or did you? Is that why you deprived us of our chance of happiness?'
    ‘But it wasn't like that! She told me to give you the letter after the wedding. I made a point of telling her that Mother wouldn't allow me to see you before the service began. Jennie said it was to tell you that she didn't bear you any resentment for marrying me.'
    ‘That isn't what she says there,' William pointed out.
    ‘I can't help what she wrote to you! I'm telling you what happened!'
    ‘And I don't believe you.'
    Georgina went very white. For one awful moment she thought she was going to faint. ‘I don't care what you believe! I don't tell lies!'
    ‘Meaning Jennifer does? Forgive me, my dear wife, if I choose to believe the woman I love. Her record gives her a credence which yours does not!'
    ‘‘You don't have to stay married to me!' Georgina cried out. ‘An annulment would suit me just fine!'
    ‘Oh, Georgie, stop whistling in the dark! Why suppress the letter and marry me in the first place if it's an annulment you want?'
    Georgina gave way to an hysterical laugh. ‘Why indeed? That ought to prove it to you that I didn't read the letter in advance. If this isn't just like Jennifer! How she loves to stir things up!'
    ‘And you don't?'
    She sobered. ‘No, I don't think I do. I haven't the imagination to make the most of my chances. If I had, I would have read your letter then and there and found out what Jennifer was up to. One is at such a disadvantage when one expects everyone to behave by one's own standards. You'd have thought I'd have learned better by now.' It was a cry from the heart, but William showed no sign of taking it as such.
    'Very clever,' he remarked. 'If I didn't know you better I might have believed you. God, Georgina, I didn't think even you hated me as much as that!'
    'You've never done anything to make me like you very much, so why shouldn't I? Not that I did! Not because of you, but because of me. I wouldn't stoop —'
    'Words, Georgie. I think you'd do almost anything to get even with me—perhaps you think you're justified, who knows? But I can promise you you won't enjoy the fruits of your triumph! Marriage can be heaven or hell, my dear. I was going to try and make it as pleasant as possible for you; I now feel relieved of any such obligation. My vengeance can be as bitter as yours —and a great deal more intimate!'
    She closed her eyes, trying not to listen. 'Why don't you let me go and marry your marvellous Jennifer, if that's what you want to do?' she asked him.
    He was quiet for so long that she thought he hadn't heard her and she opened her eyes to see what he was doing. His face was very close to hers in what could easily have been mistaken as a loving gesture. Only she could see the cold hardness of his eyes.
    'What I have, I hold, Georgina Ayres,' he said slowly. 'Isn't that what I promised you this morning? To have and to hold, from this day forward? For ever? For the rest of your life, my dear, dear wife!'
    She closed her eyes again, giving herself up to misery. What a fool she had been to marry him, she thought. What a fool ! Perhaps she had said it aloud, though she had said it to herself.
    'Why did you marry me, Georgie?' he asked her. 'I couldn't really have forced you to it, as you very well know. What made you actually say the fatal words?'
    The pain of her unhappiness collected as a lump in her chest and the back of her throat felt as stiff as a board.,
    'I think I wanted to,' she answered. 'I wanted to see Sri Lanka.'
    'And to be my wife?'
    'I don't know,' she confessed. 'I tried not to think about it. I thought you'd find out —I thought you might be kinder once we were away from home. I don't know what I thought!'
    To her surprise he smiled at that. 'Very likely! Poor Georgie, do you always hit out before you think, even when it's yourself who