No Man's Bride by Shana Galen

Author:Shana Galen [Shana Galen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780061750854
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2006-11-28T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Catherine didn’t know where she was running or why. She simply knew that she had to get away. She couldn’t breathe when Valentine was close to her. She couldn’t think or reason. For the past two days, it seemed all she did when she was in his presence was to obsess about the way she felt when he touched her. Lord, she did not even believe he had truly begun to woo her yet, and he was already too much in her thoughts.

Not that he could be otherwise, considering she was now in his house and under his protection. Catching her breath, she slowed to a walk, angling away from the house and toward a sparse copse of trees. She needed a moment to be alone. In the past two days, Valentine had spoken first of her sharing his bed and now of their shared children. She’d never considered that she would have either opportunity. She’d vowed to be a spinster, and suddenly she was in the position to be a wife and a mother.

She took a seat on an enormous root poking out of the ground. She wanted children, but she also feared motherhood. Her own mother was little more than a slave to her father. She was at his every whim, his beck and call. She suffered first and most severely when he was not pleased.

As a result, Cordelia Fullbright was a hard, cruel woman. Catherine did not know if she had always been thus, but she remembered her father berating her in front of Catherine and Lizzy. Catherine had learned to see her mother as an object of disgust. What if Catherine was forced to stand helplessly by as Valentine turned their children against her? Or worse, he might mistreat their children.

No, she would never allow that. She would not be like her mother.

Catherine sighed. More and more, she was torn between yielding to Valentine and resisting him. If she yielded, she risked so much. If she resisted…

But she was in far too deep to think of resisting now.

Yesterday he had said the decision to share the marriage bed was left to her, but a man who would one day be a marquess would need an heir. And surely he would need a legitimate heir. She was his wife. That was her duty. She could refuse him, and the result?

No heir.

Catherine stood and paced in front of the tree. So the truth of the matter was that Valentine was playing with her. In reality she had no choice. She would bear his children whether she wanted it or not. That was, unless he found a way to be rid of her. And why should he want her to stay? He’d never wanted her to begin with. It was Elizabeth he’d courted, and Elizabeth he obviously still loved. Catherine knew she was a pale second.

She managed to avoid him the rest of the day. She even escaped dining with him as he’d been overseeing a business matter with his steward.

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