The Indispensable Wife by Philippa Lodge

Author:Philippa Lodge [Lodge, Philippa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, Marriage of Convenience, Scarred Hero/Heroine
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Published: 2015-03-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

1661

She started to smile but saw that he was serious. “Of course not.” She sighed and decided to tell him the truth. “I was so very angry, Dominique. For two weeks, the only thing keeping me here was my duty.”

“And the next two weeks?” he asked softly.

“Memories of the lake,” she said. “I came here almost every day to think.”

“To think about picnics?” he asked after a short pause.

“About picnics and how much I missed you,” she said.

“So there’s some affection.”

She drew herself up straight and glared. “Only if you came home out of affection and not duty.”

He walked toward her and took her hands in his. She gasped as he fell to his knees on the soft, damp grass and held her hands to his lips. “Please forgive me, Aurore. Please. I am sorry. I was insane with jealousy, but that is not an excuse—not for your embarrassment, not for betraying you, not for adultery. I have sinned—and even worse, I have sinned against you.”

She was stunned to silence. Was this some overblown poetry that he had learned to turn her head?

“Please, Aurore.” He looked up at her, his face as solemn as ever.

“Oh, Dominique. Will you be faithful?”

“Of course. Of course. For as long as you want me to be. In three years or five, when we’ve had two or three children, when you are tired of me…”

She frowned. “You are planning to leave me as soon as I say so? What if I don’t tire of you? Will you always want to be free of me?”

“No!” he said, taken aback. “No. But if you wish to be free of me and I am alone…. No. I can’t even imagine it. Please forgive me, Aurore.”

Of course she forgave him.

A month later, only days after she had thought she was pregnant, she suffered her first miscarriage.

****

1666

Dominique slipped from his wife’s bed early in the morning. He had awoken beside Aurore, arms and legs intertwined with hers, sweating from the force of his desire. It took just one accidental brush against the soft linen covering her breast for her to shout and shove him away, arms flailing. She curled into a tight ball and shuddered twice before relaxing again. She hadn’t even woken.

As he clumped down the stairs in the baron’s house shoes and clothing borrowed from his brother-in-law, he wondered if it was a good sign or a bad one. She had been enthusiastic the night before until he touched her scar, so perhaps when she was fully awake he could coax her along. Or he should regain her trust and give her only what she wanted.

He paused on the stairs and breathed deeply to calm his rampant arousal. The door to the baron’s study opened and Cédric stuck his head out. “Oh, good. Is Aurore awake? Never mind. Come and break bread, and we can talk strategy.”

Dom’s last shred of desire dropped away at the thought of facing the king, and he shivered.

****

Aurore’s feet hurt from her sister-in-law Sandrine’s dainty bejeweled slippers.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.