The Marriage Bed by Laura Lee Guhrke Read Free Book Online

determined set of her jaw. He knew there was no way she would ever admit that it was she who had turned away first, she who had given up first, she who had said the first bitter words leading them down this road.
    Even as those thoughts ran through his mind, even as he felt a sense of righteous anger surging within him, he knew none of that mattered now. He didn't need to be right, he just needed a truce, one long enough to have a son.
    He moved to stand behind her, and he put his hands on her arms. She jumped at the contact, but he tightened his grip to keep her from moving away from him again. Through the moss green silk of her dress, she felt like stone under his fingers. "Divorce is not an option, Viola," he said as gently as he could, "so it serves no purpose to wish for it. Besides, I would not dream of putting us through that. I know you would not, either."
    "You seem very certain of what I would and would not do."
    "In this case, I am certain. Your love for your brother is stronger than your acrimony toward me. You would never bring that sort of shame down upon him or his wife and son."
    "I could still petition for legal separation. After all, we have already been separated for years. It would be nothing more than a formality."
    She was running out of ideas. He could hear desperation creeping into her voice. "I will never consent to such a separation, and without my consent, there it not a chance of it happening. Nearly every peer in the House of Lords is a married man who has no intention of giving his own wife a legal precedent on which to do the same to him."
    "Men!" She jerked free and turned to face him. "You have complete control over our lives because of laws you make, including the law that says only men can make the laws! How convenient life is for your sex."
    "Well, yes," he agreed. "We men do like things our way."
    "Anthony is in the House, and he is very powerful. He would fight for me."
    "Even the Duke of Tremore is not powerful enough to change marital law. No doubt he would go through hell and back if you asked him to do so, but in the end he would still be forced to turn you over to me. You are my wife."
    She took several steps back. "I could run away. Go to the Continent."
    "Hide?" That surprised him. It also concerned him. It was a possibility that had a remote chance of working. Tremore could keep her in funds wherever she decided to go, and he would have to run all over the world chasing her down. If she could succeed at that tactic long enough, she could put herself past the ability to have children, and he would never have a legitimate heir to supplant Bertram.
    He knew he could not afford to give her an inkling of his worry at this moment. As impulsive and strong-minded as his wife could be, if he showed any sign of concern over her threat, she'd be off to France within an hour. "I would always find you," he said with far more assurance than he felt, "and if I may say so, hiding is a course of action very unlike you. I never thought you could be a coward, Viola."
    That hit a nerve, and she scowled at him. "Having the English Channel between us is a notion I find quite appealing."
    "It would be a lonely life for you. To evade me, you would have to conceal yourself in some remote place, change your name, hide your identity. You would have no company. Knowing your love of society, it would kill you by inches to be so isolated, to be without your friends. And never to see Anthony and Daphne again? You could not bear it."
    Her shoulders slumped a bit at his words, and when she spoke again, he knew she would not be running off to Europe . "I am surrounded by impossibilities," she whispered, and all of a sudden, she looked so forlorn and lost that if he had not been unjustly judged as a brute and a cad and the entire reason for her present state of misery, he might have felt sorry for her.
    "You are making this situation far more difficult that it needs to be," he said.
    "Really?" she countered, anger