The Marriage Bed by Laura Lee Guhrke Read Free Book Online Page A

flaring again.
    "So you expect me to make it easy? I should just lie back passively and do my duty by my lord and master as other wives do?"
    He gave a shout of laughter. "You? I might just as well wish for lightning to strike me dead. The odds are better." He could tell from her outraged expression that she did not share his amusement about that, and he stifled it. "First, since you were never passive when making love, I can't imagine why you would start now. Second, I would like to think you would not only appreciate the necessity of creating an heir, but also remember the pleasure of it."
    His words made her blush. Eight years had not destroyed all her memories of their marriage bed, it seemed. John chose to see that as a good sign. "This situation will be as easy or as difficult for you as you choose to make it."
    "And if I choose to make it difficult?" she countered. She stiffened and looked at him. Behind the soft, mossy, green-brown of her eyes, he saw something else, the unmistakable glint of Tremore steel. It was a look he knew well. "If I refuse to do my wifely duty? What are you going to do, Hammond ? Drag me to bed? Throw me down and force me?"
    Of all the women in the world, he had married the most stubborn one of all. "I have never forced a woman in my life," he answered, "and you should know that better than anyone. Many a time, I
    could have beaten down the door you locked between us."
    "Why didn't you?"
    "Damned if I know. Perhaps it was that habit you got into of bursting into tears when I touched you."
    "Finding out my husband lied to me and deceived me was a good enough reason to weep, I think!"
    "Or," he went on as if she had not spoken, "perhaps it was because you started throwing accusations in my face when I tried to kiss you. Or because your fists started hammering me when I tried to take you in my arms. Forgive me, but being made to feel like a cur for touching my own wife took all the pleasure out of it for me."
    "You never loved me. How do you think it made me feel when I found that out?"
    Christ, have mercy . Were they going to talk about feelings again? He'd lose that battle for certain. He always did. He folded his arms and said nothing.
    "How do you think I felt when I learned you'd been keeping a mistress before our marriage? The whole time you were courting me, whenever you kissed me or touched me or told me you loved me…" Her voice trailed off, choked by her rage. Her hands balled into fists. "Right up until our wedding day, you were bedding Elsie Gallant. Even after we were married you—"
    " Not after we were married, Viola. Not after!"
    He'd already explained that whole mess about the necklace and paying off Elsie's contract. More than once. He wasn't going to do it again. He gritted his teeth.
    "Five mistresses since then, Hammond, and God knows how many other women that I know nothing about."
    He would not justify his affairs after being turned out of her bed. A man never had to justify something like that. "Been paying attention, have you?"
    "It is hard not to do so when the society papers and the gossipmongers tell me all about them in lurid detail. I had to sit across from Lady Darwin and take tea and pretend to be polite, knowing all the while you were between her sheets. When Lady Pomeroy was your lover, I had to endure her smirking smiles of triumph and her veiled innuendoes of your lovemaking prowess at card parties."
    "Viola—"
    "I had to listen to people at the theater rave about what a lovely creature Jane Morrow was," she interrupted, her voice cold, her hands balling into fists at her sides, "and how her lack of acting talent didn't matter because she was such a stunning beauty and charming hostess. I heard the compliments at musical recitals about what a lovely singer Maria Allen is, and the bawdy asides of how prettily she sang in your bed until her husband shot you for it! Good for him, I say! And Emma Rawlins is the woman of this season, the one whose beauty and